


What Dreams May Come

by firethesound



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Arson, Auror Harry Potter, Banter, Bickering, Blood Magic, Blood and Injury, Case Fic, Clothed Sex, Distorted Reality, Drinking, Forced Bonding, Friends With Benefits, Gaslighting, H/D Erised 2020, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Horror Elements, Implied Switching, Legilimency (Harry Potter), M/M, Magical Theory (Harry Potter), Marking, Minor Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Mirror Sex, Mutual Pining, PTSD, Post-Hogwarts, Reliving Childhood Trauma, Sharing a Bed, Smoking, Soul Bond, Unspeakable Draco Malfoy, cursed house, hospital stay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:55:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 36,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27685901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firethesound/pseuds/firethesound
Summary: If Harry had to get called into work on his day off, at least he was able to get Malfoy called in too.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 140
Kudos: 1069
Collections: H/D Erised 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [slytherco](https://archiveofourown.org/users/slytherco/gifts).



> Slytherco, your sign up was a veritable treasure trove of inspiration! I am beyond excited to have written for you, and I hope that you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing! <3 A massive thank you to my incredible (and incredibly patient!) beta for all your hard work. I couldn’t have done it without you <3

To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;  
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come  
—Hamlet, Act III, Scene I 

It’s one of those perfect, cosy Saturdays that are practically tailor-made for a lazy day inside: drizzly and grey with a heavy chill lingering in the air, and a howling wind that whistles under the door and rattles the window panes. Heaps of colourful leaves that were nicely crunchy beneath Harry’s boots as he walked home from the pub last night are now lying in sad, sodden little piles on the pavement. Harry’s breath isn’t quite steaming when he exhales, but it’s cold enough that it feels like it ought to.

A sharp breeze sets both Harry and the bare-limbed trees around him shivering, and he tugs his scarf a little tighter round his neck, tucking his chin down into the thick folds of soft wool. _Fuck_ , it’s cold. He thinks longingly of the fire he’d built an hour ago, with grand plans of a relaxing day spent in front of it, curled up on his favourite armchair with a good book in his hands, one of Molly’s knitted afghans tossed over his knees, and a strong cup of tea at his elbow.

Instead, he’d got to enjoy it for all of five minutes—just long enough for him to know exactly what he’d be missing out on—before Robards’ head had popped through the flames in his fireplace and informed him that a case had come in that needed his urgent attention.

Well. If Harry absolutely had to be called into work today, it’s at least a small consolation that he was able to get Malfoy called in too. He hadn’t even had to pull any strings to do it, either. Not that he ever has to pull strings, per se; it’s a sometimes-useful, sometimes-obnoxious perk of being the former Boy Who Lived, that people tend to fall over themselves to give him whatever he wants. Harry comforts himself with the knowledge that even if he’d sent over the case particulars with a general request for an Unspeakable, he’s one hundred percent certain they’d have sent Malfoy out. Really, Harry just saved them the bother by requesting him straight off.

Harry jams his hands into the pockets of his canvas jacket. Even layered with Harry’s strongest Warming Charm, it’s still no match for his Auror robes. His longing thoughts turn briefly from his sitting room to his hall closet where he keeps his uniform. That heavy crimson wool with its shiny brass buttons and black leather trimmings and professional-grade Warming Charms woven throughout is warm enough to get him through an all-night stakeout on even the bitterest winter night, so he’d definitely be nice and toasty on this blustery December morning. But he’s smack in the middle of a Muggle neighbourhood and one of the reasons this case had fallen to him was his ability to blend in. So, canvas jacket, jeans, and scuffed-up trainers it is.

That’s another little silver lining of being called in today on this particular case. If Harry’s got to blend, then so does Malfoy. And there’s very little Harry loves more about Malfoy than seeing him in Muggle clothing.

Even if Malfoy hadn’t been the very best the Unspeakables have to offer from their Catalogue of Curses subdivision, Harry probably could have dragged him into this case on that basis alone. After the war, Malfoy had vanished into Muggle London for a year or so, and returned with a terrible smoking habit and an unwavering affinity for Muggle fashion. The Unspeakables don’t have much of a dress code, given that they spend their days hunkered down on Level Nine, and now that he’s thinking of it, Harry honestly can’t remember the last time he saw Malfoy wearing a set of robes outside of formal Ministry events. Given how _eccentric_ most of his colleagues are, Malfoy’s really the only option for maintaining a low profile out in the Muggle world.

Harry rounds the corner and there he is. Malfoy cuts a slim dark figure in his black peacoat and black trousers. His hair is a pale shock, especially on this gloomy day, and he holds a cigarette loosely between his index and middle fingers. He’s obviously been here a while—it’s burned nearly down to the filter—but he doesn’t look impatient. He’s too busy staring thoughtfully up at the dilapidated old mansion to even notice Harry’s approach.

“That’s a filthy Muggle habit, you know,” Harry says by way of greeting, because needling at Malfoy is A) always fun, and B) a wonderful way for Harry to distract himself from how much he wants to push Malfoy up against the nearest wall to get those long legs wrapped around his hips. The sight of Malfoy in Muggle clothes always _does things_ to Harry, which is sort of a problem given how regularly Malfoy wears them these days, and Harry’s seen Malfoy in (and also got him out of) those particular trousers before. Not only do they emphasise the lean length of his legs, what they do to his arse drives Harry entirely to distraction.

It’s a really good thing that the coat Draco’s wearing falls to the tops of his thighs, hiding his arse from view.

Malfoy turns to him, taking a long, slow drag on his cigarette. His cheeks and the tip of his nose are pink. “And whatever shall you do about it? Tell my mother?”

He flicks the butt at Harry even though he’s too far to have even a prayer of hitting him. It lands on the damp pavement, and Harry veers off-course just enough to crush it out beneath his toe before he Vanishes it entirely. He’s never received a satisfying answer as to where exactly things go when they’re Vanished, but he’s never quite been able to shake his irrational fear of accidentally starting a fire wherever it is.

“You joke about that,” Harry says, “but if I _did_ tell your mum you’d probably murder me. That is, if she doesn’t get to you first.”

Malfoy scowls at him but doesn’t say anything. Probably because he knows Harry’s right and would rather die than admit it. That’s fine. Harry knows that Malfoy knows that Harry’s right, and that’s enough for him. Harry gives him a smile, and Malfoy scowls harder.

“Been waiting long?” Harry asks, coming to a stop beside him. He keeps his hands tucked into his pockets.

“Not too long,” Malfoy says. He takes a silver lighter out of his coat pocket and clicks it open and shut, open and shut. He doesn’t make a move for another cigarette, so Harry figures he’s shifted into work mode. “So. What are we here to do?”

“How much did they tell you when they called you in?” Harry asks, and Malfoy shakes his head.

“I’d like to hear it from you.” He gestures loosely with one hand, the other one still occupied with clicking the lighter. “Your impressions and whatnot.”

Harry draws himself up, making the shift to on the job. The incessant clicking of Malfoy’s lighter fades into the background as Harry mentally clocks in. “They’re not certain what exactly we’re dealing with, but it’s definitely magical. People have gone missing from around here over the years, but there’s never been a clue as to what’s happened to them before now.”

“Who’s missing this time?” Malfoy asks. He slips the lighter back in his pocket, takes out his wand, and casts a couple of discreet spells at the gate of the wrought iron fence that surrounds the mansion.

“Three teenagers, all local, went inside on a dare last night. Would’ve been four, but the last one put a little too much faith in the local legends about the old place to go in with them, and when his friends didn’t come back out he went to the police. Luckily for us, the officer they sent, PC Waters, is a Squib, and he knew to contact the Ministry. He barely got up to the front porch before he sensed that there’s something Dark going on here, and got the hell out.”

Malfoy’s eyebrows wing up toward his hairline and his wand pauses mid-cast. “A _Squib_ was able to sense the magic?”

Harry debates calling Malfoy out on the supercilious way he’d drawled _Squib_ , but ends up letting it go with a mild, “Don’t be an arsehole about it.” Malfoy rolls his eyes and Harry continues, “He said it was more of a really bad feeling. He’s not usually sensitive to magic, so he was rather shaken to be sensing anything at all.”

Malfoy’s gaze drifts to the looming house. “It must be terrifically strong,” he muses, and sounds intrigued. 

Squibs—and Muggles too, in general—can’t sense magic as a rule, but sometimes some of the more sensitive ones can tell if they’re around something very strong and very Dark. A sudden wash of inexplicable anxiety, the involuntary shudder of shoulder blades they superstitiously misattribute to someone walking over their grave, the prickling itch at the back of the skull of being watched when there’s no one else around. That sort of thing.

Malfoy, meanwhile, has cast a final spell at the gate and nods, satisfied. The wand goes away, the lighter comes out, and the clicking resumes.

“Well, that’s why they called in the Aurors to see to it,” Harry says, nudging the wrought iron gate open with the toe of his boot so he doesn’t have to take his hands out of his warm pockets. It gives a long, loud groan, and the corner of it scrapes the stone pathway halfway through its arc to open when it sags on its rusted hinges. “They think it’s probably a poltergeist, but there’s also a chance that someone’s left a bunch of active curses on the place before it was abandoned, so I called in you just in case. Figured if it _is_ curses, you’d want a go at it since they’re so old. This place has been abandoned for close to a century now, and the disappearances go back pretty much the whole way, as far as we can tell. PC Waters went through the cold case files for us and flagged anything suspicious. There’s about two dozen. Likely more than that, but two dozen’s what he was able to dig out.”

Malfoy swaps lighter for wand again, and swings it in wide loops. “No signs of life that I’m able to see. Has anyone done a more in depth scan?”

Harry nods. “They dispatched a Junior Auror to come out and sweep for signs of life on the off chance that anyone was just trapped inside. He couldn’t find anything.”

“Hm,” Malfoy says, looking up at the mansion. “Well, I’m not surprised, considering.”

“Mm,” Harry agrees. He hadn’t expected otherwise, either. If this were a rescue mission, they wouldn’t have bothered calling him in, just sent out whoever was on duty to get them on-scene as soon as possible to assist the Junior Auror in getting the victims out. And they certainly wouldn’t have let Harry take the time to pull Malfoy in, or go touch base with PC Waters beforehand. Still, there’s a part of himself that finds it hard to swallow. Harry’s been at this job long enough to accept that he can’t save everyone, but it’s still difficult when faced with it in reality. “Well, I suppose we should get on with it…”

Malfoy snorts when Harry tries to wave him in first, and gestures Harry ahead of him. “After you, Auror Scarhead.”

“Oh fuck off,” Harry says, but he does go first. It’s ridiculous, but secretly he kind of sort of likes that Malfoy calls him that, and he suspects that Malfoy probably knows it.

“A century,” Malfoy says consideringly as they make their way up the path toward the mansion. “People have been disappearing for an entire fucking century. Two dozen of them, _at least_.You’d think someone would’ve put it together sooner than this.”

Harry shrugs. “Most of the people who’ve disappeared weren’t locals. They were just passing through, looking for a place to spend the night before moving on, I suppose, but they were seen nearby and then never again. A handful of teenagers from here or other nearby towns over the years, but kids run away all the time.” He jerks his shoulders again, trying to shrug off the careless way PC Waters had said it. If he hadn’t had that bad feeling, sensed the Dark magic of this place when he’d come out to take a look, these three kids likely would have been written off the same way.

Well. If Harry’s got anything to say about it, they’ll be the last. He may be too late to save them, but he can sure as hell keep this from ever happening to anyone else.

Tufts of grass and clumps of weeds sprout in fitful patches, forcing their way through the cracked stone walkway, some of them tall enough that Harry has to step over them as he and Malfoy make their way up to the mansion. Harry takes the three broad stone steps leading up to the wide front porch at a jog, and the moment he steps foot on the weathered flagstones, the Dark magic steeped into the very foundations of this place slams into him.

“Christ,” he gasps, reeling. He gropes blindly for the railing as his knees buckle and his head spins. He’s dizzy, cold and sweating all at once, and his stomach feels like it’s trying to crawl up his throat.

A moment later Malfoy’s hand comes to rest between his shoulder blades, pressing firmly and rubbing in slow circles.

“That bad?”

There’s a touch of worry in Malfoy’s voice, so Harry knows he must look like complete and utter shit. Which is fair, since that’s how he feels.

“Yeah, it’s—fuck.” Harry shakes off Malfoy’s hand and staggers down the steps, braces his hands on his knees and bends over to dry heave a couple of times over the scraggly remains of this place’s landscaping. “ _Fuck_ ,” he says again, because saying it once certainly wasn’t enough. Saying it a dozen times wouldn’t be enough. “I’ve never felt anything like this.” He spits into the bushes, then squints up at Malfoy. “Did you feel it?”

“It feels bad,” Malfoy says. “Old and evil, and very Dark. But not any worse to me than the Thompson case we worked together last year, and you didn’t react nearly this badly to that one.” He gazes up at the mansion again, and when he looks over at Harry a moment later, he’s frowning thoughtfully. “Is it the type of Dark magic here that’s setting you off, do you think?”

He’s asking himself more than Harry, just musing aloud. Harry has a feeling that this case just got even more interesting to Malfoy, if something about this Dark magic in particular is resonating so strongly with Harry.

“Ugh,” Harry says, and spits into the bushes again. He’s so tired of being special. Gingerly, he risks straightening up and sighs in relief as the nausea continues to slowly abate rather than making a surging reappearance.

“Well. You know what this means,” Malfoy says, and then loudly says, “ _Yes_ ,” over Harry’s groaned _no_. “Unless you want to keep puking.”

Harry very much does not want to keep puking. “I didn’t,” he says instead, and Merlin help him, he actually gestures to the wildly overgrown flowerbed which he very much did _not_ puke into, like he expects it to leap to his defence and back him up. Harry would really love to know what exactly it is about Malfoy that routinely turns him into a complete idiot.

(That’s a lie. He knows perfectly well. He just doesn’t want to think about it.)

“That says more about your failure to eat breakfast than it does about your current state,” Malfoy says, folding his arms over his chest.

“I was planning to—that’s not—” He’d been _meaning_ to have breakfast, he just hadn’t got around to it before the call from Robards had come in.

“I know you, Harry,” Malfoy says smugly.

It’s true, after all, and isn’t that a thought? Five years of friendship, plus an extra two with benefits, and Malfoy knows him nearly as well as Ron and Hermione do.

Of course, Malfoy ruins Harry’s tender inner musings by following up with, “Now be a good boy and occlude your mind.”

“I don’t want to do it,” Harry says, and it comes out as a bit of a whine.

“I know,” Malfoy says and turns away, because he knows that if Harry’s reduced to whining, the conversation’s over.

He really does know Harry, and the warm soppy feeling that spreads through Harry chases away the last of his nausea, replacing it with butterflies. Fucking _butterflies_ , like he’s a schoolboy with a crush.

See? Complete idiot.

Harry sighs and does his best to put it from his mind as he gets out his wand and gets to it, because as much as he hates this, he also knows that Malfoy’s right. As much as Harry wants to try to just tough it out, the Dark magic blanketing this place is like nothing Harry’s ever felt before. Something about that final battle at Hogwarts—maybe the second Killing Curse, or possibly some sort of backlash from no longer being a Horcrux—left Harry incredibly sensitive to Dark magic. Even with Hermione diving deep into research, poring over every tome she could possibly get her hands on, they’d been unable to find even the slightest reference to anyone who’d ever survived either one of those things, never mind both. 

So who the fuck knows what’s wrong with him, but either way it’s a massive pain in Harry’s arse, especially considering his day job. But most of the time he’s able to make do. His sensitivity is a bit like an allergy. As long as his contact with Dark magic is fleeting, it generally doesn’t affect him too badly. A duel with a wizard tossing off Dark spells is like passing a cat in an alleyway; curses that have had time to settle into a building are more like spending the afternoon at Hermione’s with Crookshanks doing his best to sneak onto Harry’s lap.

Whatever’s here is very old, very powerful, and _very_ Dark. Harry’s never been set off like this, ever. To continue the cat analogy, if a single spell is passing a cat and other cursed places are Crookshanks, then this place is like spending the day at Mrs Figg’s.

Malfoy’s moved back onto the porch and he’s busy twirling his wand around, firing off spell after spell at the mansion, and Harry sighs and closes his eyes because the sight of Malfoy in his Muggle coat and tight trousers, wielding magic with that sort of casual competency certainly isn’t helping his concentration any. And Occlumency never has come easy to Harry.

He’s grown better at it since his days under Snape’s less-than-gentle tutelage. It’s mostly due to the fact that—much to Harry’s surprise—Malfoy isn’t half-bad as a teacher. Of course it also helps that most of their lessons had happened naked, in bed, while Harry was blissed out from yet another incredible fuck. It’s far easier to keep his mind clear and focused post-orgasm, as it turns out.

He’d found out about Harry’s Dark magic sensitivity one night relatively early into the _benefits_ portion of their friendship, when he’d brought some of his work home with him, and Harry had nearly thrown up his dinner the minute they’d come tumbling out of the Floo. Malfoy had locked down the cursed object under heavy-duty Dampening Spells, and they’d had their first Occlumency lesson that very night.

The first step, when Harry needs to cast some seriously sturdy mental shields, is always taking himself right back to that evening in Malfoy’s bed. He closes his eyes and pictures it: the soft golden sunlight slanting through the window, the soft mattress and smooth white sheets holding the warmth of their bodies, the way everything smells a lot like Malfoy and a little like _them_. Once he’s got the room firmly in mind, he adds in Malfoy. All that soft pale skin, the way his blond hair sticks up a little at the back from where he'd been lying on the pillow, the way his eyes go warm and half-lidded when he sweeps his gaze over Harry. The gentle touch of his fingers to Harry’s elbow, his low voice murmuring in Harry’s ear as he walks him through building up his shields.

 _Like building a wall_ , Harry can hear in his mind as clearly as if Malfoy is speaking aloud. _One block at a time_.

Harry breathes in, and out, and in, and out, slow and deep and even. He always pictures the boys’ dorm in Gryffindor Tower for this next part, the first place he’d ever truly felt safe. In his mind he circles the room slowly, picturing each stone block, around and around starting at the floor and slowly working his way higher, until he pictures each stone just beneath the base of the dorm’s pointed roof. When he imagines the final stone, it feels like clicking a final puzzle piece into place. Gryffindor Tower fades away, leaving just Harry, alone in his mind.

He gives his head an experimental shake and scrunches his nose. Harry _hates_ the way Occlumency feels when he’s got his mind fully shielded like this. It’s a bit like being on Muggle cold medicine, where his head feels sort of like it’s floating. Malfoy insists that’s not actually a side effect of Occlumency and it’s all in Harry’s head, to which Harry always replies _of course_ it’s in his head, that’s where the Occlumency is happening, isn’t it? Then Malfoy rolls his eyes and sometimes if he feels like being an utter shit he’ll use Legilimency to reach out and somehow sort of _flick_ Harry’s occluded mind so that his shields ring like a bell, which makes Harry feel like his back teeth are vibrating. Two years after that first lesson, and he still hasn’t worked out how Malfoy even does that but he desperately wants to figure it out so he can do it back.

For now, he takes a minute to enjoy watching Malfoy work. He’s got out his pocket watch now, the modified one with all the extra hands and the little chips of coloured glass inlaid into the face and affixed to the inside of the lid in a starburst pattern. Harry can see the hands spinning from here, whizzing around like tiny propellers, and the little chips of glass flash in patterns that look entirely random to Harry’s untrained eye. Eventually, Malfoy clicks the watch shut and tucks it away, and casts a few more spells before he nods to himself, satisfied with whatever he sees.

“Well,” says Malfoy, slipping his wand into his pocket, sauntering back across the porch and starting down the steps. “I’d say it’s likely not a poltergeist. Or any other sort of haunting. I can’t eliminate it completely until we go inside, of course, but I’m almost positive. It’s rare for ghosts to go bad enough to cause something like this, but it’s almost always a big fucking deal when they do.” He pauses and glances at the mansion over his shoulder. “The sheer power of whatever’s going on here fits, but I’m fairly confident in saying that someone would have noticed sooner than this if it were a ghost. They tend to have _agendas_. So.” He claps his hands briskly and hops the final step to the ground. “We’re probably dealing with curses.”

“Bad ones?”

Malfoy nods and glances back at the mansion again. “ _Terrible_ ones. I’ve never seen anything like this.” And he must not have, Harry thinks, because Malfoy sounds positively cheery. Harry doesn’t think he’s _ever_ heard Malfoy sound this cheerful about anything, up to and including the time that Harry let Malfoy use his Auror-issued handcuffs on him. “And to think, I was planning to spend my day at home with my feet up and my nose buried in a book,” Malfoy goes on.

“Oh hey, that’s what I was planning to do today too,” Harry says, momentarily sidetracked.

“So much for that,” Malfoy says, still disconcertingly cheerful. He pauses and gives Harry a quick once-over in that way that makes Harry’s stomach swoop. “I thought about calling you up, though I suppose now it’s a good thing I didn’t. Considering.” He flips a hand at the mansion.

“You just saw me last night,” Harry says dumbly, inordinately pleased that Malfoy wanted to see him again so soon. Although, last night Harry had pinned Malfoy down and rimmed him for ages, until he came from nothing more than Harry’s tongue in his arse. Malfoy had been left almost incoherent, boneless and sated where he lay spread-eagled across Harry’s bed. Harry supposes he’s not too terribly surprised that Malfoy’s already been thinking about a repeat performance. Harry really gave it his all, if he does say so himself.

“I did see you last night,” Malfoy agrees easily. “And look, I get to see you again today after all.”

Harry thinks about making a comment, something along the lines of how he’d rather be seeing more of Malfoy, preferably without all those pesky clothes in the way, but bites his tongue. He can do better than that, and he only gets a certain number of innuendos while they’re on a job before Malfoy begins to find it irritating rather than entertaining.

“Any idea what we’re in for?” Harry asks instead. He’d like to arm himself with more knowledge than just _terrible curses_ before they venture inside.

“Do you mind if I check you?” Malfoy asks in lieu of an answer, wand in hand because he already knows that Harry will agree.

“Please,” Harry says. If his shields are shit (as they sometimes are) he’d rather find out with Malfoy poking at them than by going into the house and having them collapse out from under him. What happened on the porch is not an experience he cares to repeat.

“ _Legilimens_ ,” Malfoy says, looping his wand through the air.

There’s a feather-light brush against Harry’s mind, but Malfoy doesn’t push in right away. Instead, he maps out the shape of Harry’s mental protections, familiarising himself with the shape of Harry’s mind, the formation of the defences Harry’s built up. Harry rather enjoys this part of it; the brush of Malfoy’s consciousness against the edges of his own is smooth and gentle, and makes a pleasant sort of tingling break out down the back of Harry’s skull to the nape of his neck. It’s nice. 

“Pressure,” Malfoy says in warning.

Harry braces automatically, then forces himself to relax and begins running through exactly how many rules in the _Ministry Employee’s Code of Personal Conduct_ he and Malfoy are breaking by continuing to work together on active cases even though they’re fucking. 

(Twelve. They’re breaking twelve. He’s counted them before.)

Harry’s trying to remember the precise wording of each one, though, and that’s a pretty good distraction from what Malfoy’s doing. Harry can feel him sidling around Harry’s mental shields, pushing and prodding, searching for a weak spot, trying to find even the tiniest crevice he can leverage to crack Harry’s mind open entirely.

“What were you going for?” Harry asks a minute later when he feels the smooth press of Malfoy’s mind retreat.

The grin Malfoy gives him is startlingly boyish. “Last Saturday. I’ll leave it to you to guess afternoon or evening.”

Last Saturday they’d both joined in on a game of pick-up Quidditch, and Malfoy had actually beat Harry to the Snitch. Afterward, Harry had helped him celebrate by hauling him into the shower with him and then sucking an impressive constellation of lovebites up the insides of Malfoy’s thighs before finally swallowing his cock as deep as it’d go. It’s even Galleons which part of that memory Malfoy had been trying to dig out, really.

“Obviously it must be afternoon,” Harry says dryly, “seeing as how we are on the clock.”

Malfoy winks at him like the complete git he is, and Harry has no idea why he’s anywhere near as enamoured of this arsehole as he is. He quickly brushes the thought aside; although he trusts Malfoy enough to know that he’d never use Legilimency on him without his permission, he still can’t help but worry that Malfoy will somehow know what Harry’s thinking just by looking at him. He’s already proved remarkably adept at working out Harry’s innermost thoughts from nothing more than the expression on his face. Which is sort of handy when it comes to thoughts like, _This Ministry function I was obligated to attend is so boring that I regret not smuggling my Invisibility Cloak in with me so I can sneak out early, but I’d get through the rest of it much easier after a quick blowjob in the loo_.

It’s not so handy when it comes to pesky thoughts like, _I’m pretty sure I’m in love with you_.

Especially when he doesn’t want to be.

Honestly, Harry sort of hates that he is. He and Malfoy had discussed it after that first impulsive time they’d slept together, when they’d come to an agreement to continue sleeping together because the sex had been so incredibly, unexpectedly good that neither of them had been willing to let it be a one-off. It’d been funny at the time. Harry remembers with a sickening clarity how he and Malfoy had actually laughed aloud at the idea of them being boyfriends. _Just sex_ , they’d agreed, _no strings attached_ , and then Malfoy had added _no kissing_ and _no spending the night_ , and Harry had added _no sex at work_ and _no leaving marks above the collar_ because if Malfoy was adding rules to their arrangement then he felt he ought to add something too. Then they shook on it to seal the deal.

It’s not that Harry thinks that Malfoy will react _badly_ if he were to find out that Harry’s fallen for him. No, on the contrary Harry knows that Malfoy will be terribly gentle about it. Firm, as he tells Harry that he doesn’t feel the same, but gentle. He’ll do his best to spare Harry’s feelings, and Harry thinks that will hurt most of all.

Harry’s heart does that funny flip-twinge thing it does whenever he acknowledges the depth of his feelings for Malfoy, and a flutter of panic ripples through him. 

_Think of his arse!_ Harry tells himself firmly, and runs through the list at top speed of all the things he has done to it and would like to do to it again.

It works. Malfoy takes one look at Harry, rolls his eyes and reminds him, “On the clock.”

“Spoilsport,” Harry says.

“I’d like you to focus on the case at hand, please, and not set off a curse because you’re too busy thinking about my dick to watch where you’re going.”

“I can multitask,” Harry says. “And I was actually thinking about your arse.”

That gets him another eye roll, but a fond little smile tugs at one corner of Malfoy’s mouth, and Harry wrestles down the urge to kiss him. 

It’s been six months since the idea of kissing Malfoy popped into his mind and settled in for good, and Harry genuinely misses the days when he didn’t care at all about not being allowed to kiss Draco Malfoy. He’d been completely fine with Malfoy’s stupid no kissing rule when Malfoy had first proposed it. Harry had even gone so far as to be grateful for it, since there were so many other uses to which Malfoy could—and very regularly did—put that wicked mouth of his. But it’s slowly turning into the great tragedy of Harry’s life that he’s never kissed Malfoy. He wants it with an intensity that brings up words like _yearning_ and _anguished_. It’s completely ridiculous. He half-expects himself to start swooning about it one of these days.

It’s utterly absurd to want it this badly. After all, he’s kissed Malfoy everywhere else, had his mouth on every pale and pointy bit of him, and felt the warm press of Malfoy’s lips to every other part of his own body in return. So Harry honestly has no idea why he’s as obsessed with the idea of kissing Malfoy on the mouth as he is. It might not even be as good as Harry’s built it up to be in his imagination. It might be too wet, or with too much teeth. Really, Malfoy might be a truly terrible kisser.

(Lies. All lies. It would be bloody perfect because everything else about Malfoy is bloody perfect, even the parts of him that are weird or obnoxious. Harry even finds it charming that Malfoy always sings old Celestina Warbeck songs in the shower, which is how Harry knows he’s truly fucked.)

“All the same,” Malfoy says, “I’d much rather you focus on the matter at hand.”

That’s just begging for an innuendo about what else Harry would rather have _at hand_ , but he somehow manages to resist.

“Fine, fine,” Harry says, sighing. “I’m focused.”

Malfoy levels a shrewd look at him, looking for half a second like he wants another go at Harry with Legilimency, to blast through Harry’s mental walls and find out for himself. But he gives a nod and turns back to the mansion.

“Try the porch first?” he suggests.

That’s more than reasonable. Harry squares his shoulders and turns to face it. With the memory of his earlier reaction sitting like a stone in the pit of his stomach, he moves cautiously. Harry slowly ascends the first step, then the second, and then steps onto the porch. He waits a few tense seconds, and when nothing happens he turns to Malfoy and spreads his arms in invitation.

Malfoy’s not quite as gentle this time, pushing up against Harry’s mental shields and giving them a series of hard shoves before retreating again.

“All right,” Malfoy says, letting his wand hang loose in his hand as he jogs up the steps to join Harry on the porch. “I suppose that’s as good as we can do to prepare you. Now. Let’s see what we’re in for, shall we?”

The front door stands ajar, and Malfoy carefully nudges it with the toe of his boot. Harry half-expects the hinges to creak menacingly, but the door swings open silently, gliding open all the way and bouncing off the door stop with a little _thump_ that echoes through the massive entryway.

This time, Harry doesn’t try to let Malfoy go first. He takes a deep breath and steps inside.

He feels the gentle tug of Malfoy’s fingers fisting the tail of Harry’s jacket, ready to yank him back out if he shows any adverse reaction, but nothing happens and Malfoy lets go a moment later.

“All right?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Harry says, looking around. “I’m fine.”

The place is massive, and surprisingly cluttered. He doesn’t know why he expected it to be empty, but it’s still fully furnished in a fussy, overdone sort of way that reminds Harry uncomfortably of how Grimmauld Place used to be before he’d had it renovated. Heavy wooden furniture with ornately carved details, moth-eaten Persian carpets spread over the creaking hardwood floors, heavy velvet drapes and water-spotted wallpaper peeling at the corners, and fussy knickknacks cluttering up every available surface. An antique mirror, its face gone a little hazy with age, reflects back a softer version of the room they’re in, and overhead an enormous chandelier drips with hundreds of cut crystal teardrops, glinting dully under a heavy layer of dust and spider webs. 

He half-expects Mrs Black to start shrieking at any moment.

Harry walks slowly, moving deeper into the entryway with Malfoy half a step behind him. It’s quiet, eerily so, and their footsteps echo in the emptiness. Harry’s trainers make a dry _shush-shush_ as he walks over the wood floor, while the heels of Malfoy’s boots clop loudly. He’s just turning to Malfoy to tell him it’s a good thing that this isn’t a case that requires any sort of stealth, but he doesn’t get the chance.

The front door slams shut. Harry startles, whirling around with his wand in hand, and Malfoy’s right there beside him. For a long, tense moment they stand frozen, but nothing else happens.

“Well,” Malfoy says, lowering his wand but not putting it away. “I suppose there’s our first curse.”

“I guess so,” Harry says, willing his hammering heart to slow down to a more reasonable rhythm. “Fuck, I was not expecting that. Here, let me…”

Harry lifts his wand, ready to cast an _Alohomora_ , but Malfoy grabs his wrist and jerks it down.

“No active magic,” he warns. “We don’t know what sort of curses we’re dealing with, or how fragile they may be. If we feed fresh magic into them while they’re unstable, we might set one off. Or worse, if they’re deteriorated enough, we might start a chain reaction that sets them _all_ off.”

“All right, all right,” Harry tells him, tugging his hand free and slipping his wand back into his pocket. He unzips his jacket and slides his hand into the inner pocket, rummaging around and coming up with a slim leather case. “I don’t like being left without an escape. Mind if I try it the Muggle way?”

“Be my guest,” Malfoy says, stepping back from the door. He fires off a series of different diagnostic charms—passive magic—as Harry approaches, then nods. “It ought to be safe to touch. I don’t sense anything active, so it’s likely just meant to keep us in.”

“We’ll see about that,” Harry mutters, mostly to himself.

After that daring escape from the Dursleys’ back in Harry’s second year, Ron had pestered Fred and George into teaching him and Harry how to pick locks. It’s a skill that’s come in handy several times over the years. Most witches and wizards will take the time to ward against magical means of breaking in, from an _Alohomora_ all the way up to a _Confringo_ , and then the lock itself will be something that Harry could jimmy open blindfolded and with one hand tied behind his back. 

He kneels down in front of the door and selects his tools. He carefully slides his pick into the lock, and nearly drops it when there’s a sharp crunch that sets it jolting in his hand. He yanks it free, and finds that the tip of it’s been bitten off.

Malfoy’s hand closes around his shoulder and tugs him back. “It appears that it’s warded against Muggle as well as magical means of escape,” he says. 

“I’ll say,” Harry mutters, sliding the broken pick back into the leather case. Maybe he can _Reparo_ it later. He’s having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that the front door just ate his lock pick.

If the witches or wizards who cursed this place thought to leave something to protect against the front door’s lock being picked, they were either, A) exceptionally thorough, B) exceptionally crafty, or C) both.

Harry hopes it’s not both. He was looking forward to a relatively calm day of watching Malfoy work. He hadn’t anticipated being in any sort of real danger here. He thought they’d come in, he’d watch Malfoy lose his mind over vintage spellwork for a while, and then they’d grab takeaway on their way back to Harry’s flat where they’d eat dinner, swiping bites from each other’s takeaway boxes, and then have some pretty spectacular sex, probably right there on Harry's sofa.

There’s something about seeing Malfoy on the job that really does it for Harry. He’s always so controlled, so perfectly put together, and there’s something about the way he gets so intense, so focused when he’s in work mode. Harry just wants to muss him all up, drive him to distraction and break down that brisk and businesslike air he takes on when he’s lost in his work. Having to keep himself restrained while they’re working winds Harry up like nothing else, and when he finally gets to take Malfoy home afterward and take him apart, it always feels a little explosive.

But now there’s actual danger, which means that Harry’s going to have to keep the majority of his mind on the case instead of on Malfoy. He’s more than a little disappointed.

“All right,” he says, setting his personal feelings aside. “How do you want to do this? I need to clear the rest of the building. Shall we stick together or do you want to get started on your analysis?”

Malfoy gives the front door a longing look. “I suppose we ought to stick together, considering.”

“I’ll make it quick as I can,” Harry promises, and leads the way.

To one side of the entryway is a small parlour. A brocade-upholstered sofa and two matching chairs sit before a huge fireplace. Incongruously, there’s a bicycle leaned against the wall, dusty as everything else in the house. It rests on its rims, the tyres cracked and crumbling. It’s obviously old, similar in style to the one that Dudley’s friend Piers rode around the neighbourhood, a hand-me-down from his dad.

There’s another parlour off the other side of the entryway, this one larger with a square grand piano crouched in the corner. A large archway connects to the dining room, and Harry follows that through to the butler’s pantry, then into the kitchen, then back up the hallway, peeking into a small library and peering up and down the empty dumbwaiter shaft with the aid of a small electric torch he fishes out of one of his jacket pockets. Upstairs he goes through half a dozen bedrooms, from the large elaborately-furnished master suite looking out onto the front garden to a small room tucked at the back of the house, little bigger than a closet, with two narrow beds crammed into it. This is definitely a wizarding home, if either he or Malfoy had any lingering doubts about it; the beds are house-elf sized. Continuing up another flight of stairs, there’s another floor of bedrooms, and then above that, finally, the attic.

He takes note of a scattering of items that don’t quite fit: a blue windbreaker tossed over the back of a chair, several backpacks, a pair of hiking boots sat near the side of one of the beds, a bright yellow umbrella propped in a corner.

After trooping all the way back down, Harry leads the way into the basement. It’s a warren of rough stone rooms—the phrase _murder basement_ springs unbidden to Harry’s mind and refuses to leave—but it’s mostly empty. Almost startlingly so. The only thing their search turns up is a collection of jars on rickety wooden shelves in one of the small rooms, their contents cloudy with age. Incidentally, they’re the most dangerous thing Harry’s spotted so far. At this point they’d probably qualify as biological weapons. Harry gives them a wide berth.

“No bodies,” Malfoy says as they poke their heads into the final basement room and find it as empty as all the rest.

Harry clicks his teeth and shoots a finger gun at Malfoy, who predictably rolls his eyes. Harry’s crap at Legilimency himself, but he doesn’t need it to read the thought _I can’t believe I regularly get naked with you_ flitting through Malfoy’s mind clear as anything.

“So where did they go?” Malfoy asks after a moment. “You said dozens of people over the years. If nothing else there ought to be the three from last night.”

“Honestly?” Harry says, sticking his hands in his pockets and rocking up on his toes. “I’m sort of hoping you can tell me.”

“Done with your part, then?” Malfoy asks. “Brilliant. Here, make yourself useful and hold this.” He hands Harry a slim leather-bound book, then takes out the modified pocket watch and his wand. “Open it if I tell you to, otherwise—”

“I have worked with you before, you know,” Harry says mildly.

The book is for collecting magical samples. Each sheet of parchment is specially treated to be as close to magically null as possible, with a series of spells laid over them to seal it in. A bit like making slides for a microscope, Harry thinks. Malfoy’s not in the collecting phase yet—he’ll want to go through the entire building first, starting with the foundations and working his way up—but sometimes he comes across a trace of magic too faint or too delicate to come back for, and will want to collect it right then. If that happens, it’s Harry’s job to get the book open to a fresh page and hold it steady.

He’s not thrilled to be hanging about the murder basement any longer than necessary, but Malfoy is incredibly—sometimes, maddeningly—thorough in his work. They start at the north wall, then make their way east, south, and west, weaving in and out of rooms. Malfoy even casts an array of diagnostic spells and sensing charms over the collection of ancient canned foods, even though in Harry’s opinion they obviously don’t contain anything more threatening than a horrible case of botulism, which is easily avoided so long as they’re not stupid enough to try to eat any of them.

Malfoy’s still silent as they make their way up to the ground floor again. Once there, he makes a beeline for the front door. Harry’s left wrong-footed for a moment—he’d turned to the right, ready to head down the hallway to the kitchen, which takes up the north wall of the house—but Malfoy turns left instead, his long-legged strides carrying him swiftly down the hall and out of sight, leaving Harry to hustle after him. Malfoy always works in a very specific order when he’s analysing magic like this: foundations to rafters, one floor at a time, in clockwise circles starting with the northernmost point. Harry doesn’t know what it means, precisely, that Malfoy’s breaking his usual routine, but he’s pretty sure it isn’t anything good.

When he catches up, stepping into the entryway just a few seconds later, Malfoy’s back at the front door, hurling a steady stream of spells at it, barely looking at his wand as he casts. His gaze is pinned to the modified pocket watch he holds balanced on his palm, and his brow has begun to pinch, either in concentration or consternation.

Harry prays it’s just concentration. _Please_ let it just be concentration.

“Well,” Malfoy says after a disconcertingly long time. He shuts the pocket watch with a crisp _snap_. “This is concerning.”

The back of Harry’s neck prickles. “That’s not what I want to hear you say.”

“Believe me, Scarhead, that makes two of us.” Malfoy takes a step back as he tucks the pocket watch away, and out comes the lighter. He clicks it open and shut, open and shut. He’s either thinking hard, or—worse—he’s nervous. “I’m not able to work out what curse, precisely, is doing this. Slamming the door shut, keeping it shut, destroying your lock picks? Any of it. The magic is there, but I can’t make heads or tails of how it coalesces into a spell. I’ve never seen anything like this in my life.”

The prickling at the back of Harry’s neck slithers down his spine and congeals in the pit of his stomach. “What.”

The question comes out flat, and Malfoy looks over at Harry.

“This whole place is soaked in magic, so far as I can tell. At least, the entirety of the basement was, and I’d assume that the rest is as well. I came back up to try my luck with the door, since we’ve already seen that curse activate, and I was hoping that a bit of context for what I was looking at would help me decipher more about what’s going on here.”

“But no luck?” Harry asks.

“No luck,” Malfoy agrees. “That does make our job here more difficult, unfortunately. If I can’t identify any of the spellwork here, I can’t dismantle it. And we certainly can’t leave it for the next bunch of unsuspecting Muggles to come blundering into.”

“Why not just burn it down?” Harry suggests, staring at the door. He tucks his hands into his pockets. “This place can’t hurt anyone if it’s not here anymore.”

Malfoy gives him a sour look and shoves his lighter back into his pocket like he expects Harry to swipe it straight out of his hand and set the mansion on fire right here and now. “Why is that your solution to everything?”

Harry shrugs. “Because it works. Usually.”

“This house,” Malfoy begins, and he draws himself up in the way that means he’s about to launch into a lecture. “ _This house_ could be a veritable goldmine of rare magic, heretofore unseen—”

“Oh, do go on,” Harry says, working up a bit of a leer. “You know it gets me hot when you try to educate me. Go on, say _heretofore_ again.”

Malfoy’s mouth purses into something thin and disapproving even as a flicker of appreciation lights his eyes. “We are on the clock, Potter,” he says primly.

Harry shrugs, unrepentant. He can’t bring himself to be sorry for it, not when Malfoy says _Potter_ like that.

Harry really likes when Malfoy says _Potter_ like that. It’s a little bit of a problem. A lot of things about Malfoy are a little bit of a problem.

“Besides,” Malfoy says firmly, getting their conversation back on track as if Harry’s clumsy attempts at flirting had never happened. “Do try and have a little faith in my abilities. I haven’t yet come across a curse I wasn’t able to safely disarm and catalogue.” He frowns, and adds, “Eventually.”

“Well, that’s why I requested you,” Harry says with a little shrug. “You’re the best.”

Malfoy’s face does something complicated, and then he levels a cool gaze at Harry, brows raised. “I thought you requested me so you could ogle my arse.”

“That’s a bonus,” Harry says. He debates for a moment whether he can get away with giving said arse a pat, but decides against it. This case looks like it’s going to take longer than Harry thought it would, so he’s got to pace himself. “But mostly, if I’m going to be trapped in a cursed mansion, there’s no other wand I’d rather have at my back.”

It’s a sincere compliment, and Harry genuinely means it, but telling Malfoy so feels like he’s edging close to other things he’d rather not disclose. So he adds a bit of a leer and a totally-over-the-top eyebrow waggle to turn it into an innuendo and steer them back into safer waters.

It works. Malfoy lets out a thoroughly inelegant and completely endearing little snort of laughter, and Harry grins in return.

“Well, I suppose trapped is relative, when one of the people in question is you,” Malfoy says after a moment.

Harry shrugs. While he doesn’t enjoy having his main exit closed off, he’s not too worried about being able to get them out in an emergency. They’re both equipped with regulation emergency Portkeys, and Harry’s one of the few wizards alive who’s got the sheer strength to wield a combination of Apparition and heavy-duty Shield Charms like a battering ram against whatever warding might be locking this place down. He’s had to do it before, and in a pinch he can do it again.

He won’t, though, except in an emergency. Malfoy’s warning about the potential delicacy of the decrepit cursework, plus this new revelation about not being able to recognise any of it, carries a lot of weight with Harry. He doesn’t know what ramming their way free would do, but he bets it would be to great effect. Spectacular, even. He’s almost sure it’d destroy everything Malfoy’s here to catalogue, and if they’re lucky that’s _all_ it’d destroy. Harry doesn’t relish the idea of the Ministry needing to deploy their Obliviation Squad on his account, especially not so soon after the last time.

“Probably,” Harry agrees. “Got your Portkey?”

Malfoy opens his coat and touches a small button he’s got pinned to the inside of the placket. “You?”

Harry holds up his hand and tugs his cuff back, showing off a braided leather cord knotted around his wrist. “Got it.”

Malfoy nods. “Then I suppose I ought to get started.”

With that, he turns on his heel and stalks down the hallway, heading for the kitchen and the north wall of the mansion.


	2. Chapter 2

After Malfoy finishes his initial analysis of the property, he returns to the north wall of the basement to begin collecting his samples. From there, it’s a long morning of watching Malfoy wave his wand around and mutter to himself. He’d described the mechanics of it to Harry once, back when they’d worked their first case together, and had likened the process to teasing a single fibre free from a knitted jumper without snagging the rest of the wool. Truthfully, it’d sounded unbearably tedious to Harry, but he supposes that’s why he’s an Auror and not an Unspeakable. Malfoy, on the other hand, can happily lose himself in his work for hours on end.

As he has today.

It really is a shame that Harry’s far too on-edge to enjoy him properly.

“Hey,” Harry eventually says, timing his words for when Malfoy touches the tip of his wand to a fresh page in his book and then sweeps his palm over it to seal in the sample he'd just collected. “It’s lunchtime.”

Malfoy blinks at Harry, then looks around the dining room as if he’s only just noticing where he is. “I don’t know about you, but I certainly wouldn’t trust anything we’d find in the kitchen. And it’s not as if we can pop out to pick something up.”

But Harry’s already rummaging through the inner pockets of his jacket. “No, it’s all right, I’ve got stuff for sandwiches…” He’s also got an impressive array of tinned vegetables, but without magic there’s no way to heat them up and Harry’s not thrilled about the idea of eating them cold. He comes up with an individually sized packet of salt and vinegar crisps and holds it up. “And crisps?”

When Hermione had presented him with this jacket years ago, she’d loaded it up with eggs and sausages and bread and tea, rashers of bacon and bags of potatoes—things that’d be convenient for campfire cooking. Harry kept it up, at first, but recently he’s grown lazier about it, instead stocking up on things that have a longer shelf life. Even with the heavy-duty Stasis Charms Hermione included to keep things fresh, food eventually spoils and goes stale, and a jar of peanut butter lasts a hell of a lot longer than a carton of eggs. This way, Harry only has to bother with swapping it out with fresher goods from his pantry at home once every couple of years.

His laziness has worked out in his favour, though. It’s not like he and Malfoy can build a campfire inside this place, and he’s not keen to try his luck with the cooker.

Malfoy’s looking interested by now; another thing he’d come back from Muggle London with was a bit of a weakness for Muggle junk food. “Have you got any of the ketchup flavoured ones?” he asks.

Harry digs around and comes up with a bag and tosses it to Malfoy, keeping the salt and vinegar flavoured ones for himself. “Peanut butter all right for your sandwich?”

Malfoy makes a face at that. “I suppose I can manage.”

A bit more digging through his pockets produces a stack of paper napkins and a butter knife. It’s a bit awkward to make the sandwiches without a work surface, but Malfoy obligingly holds the jar of peanut butter for him and Harry balances bread on one hand and wields the knife with the other. Two sandwiches done, Harry hands them off to Malfoy, puts the jar of peanut butter away, and wraps the gooey knife in a napkin before stowing it as well.

Harry pulls up a couple of bottles of soda—Coke for himself and an orange Fanta for Malfoy—that are properly icy beneath their Cooling Charms. Harry pries off the caps with his bottle opener, and makes a mental note to send Hermione yet another thank you note for this jacket. If he gave her a Galleon for every time it’s saved his arse so far, he might as well sign over his entire Gringotts vault.

By unspoken agreement, they eat standing up. With Malfoy unable to tell anything about the magic in this place other than that it’s _everywhere_ , neither of them want to risk using the table, or even sitting down on chairs. They eat quickly and without speaking, and in no time at all they’re finished.

Without anything else to distract him, Harry can’t help but notice how the ketchup crisps have left a layer of red dust on Malfoy’s fingers, and it’s immensely distracting. Harry wants to suck it off, but he abruptly revises his opinion a moment later when Malfoy sticks his fingers into his own mouth one at a time and sucks it off himself. He wants to watch the way Malfoy’s lips purse around each finger, how his cheeks hollow, how his throat works as he swallows. But Harry turns quickly away, and busies himself tidying up their mess, shoving the crumpled napkins and bottlecaps into the empty crisp bags, and then putting them and the empty bottles into his jacket where they disappear until Harry will eventually remember to clear them out. Probably the next time he rotates his stock, honestly.

He makes a mental note to stock up on more of the ketchup crisps for Malfoy, should they ever find themselves in a situation where Harry’s jacket is once again their only option for lunch. His stomach twists a moment later, because he just restocked the jacket last spring so it’ll be another year or so before he does it again, and Harry has no idea whether this thing he’s got going with Malfoy will have run its course by then.

He hopes it won’t have, because he certainly has no intention of calling it quits, and the only reason he can imagine Malfoy breaking things off is if he falls for someone else. Harry’s never seen Malfoy in a relationship, not since he sort-of dated Parkinson back at Hogwarts, and he has no desire whatsoever to see him in one now.

At the time, the way Malfoy had lolled all over Parkinson, and how she’d fawned over him and cooed at him and played with his hair, had only been obnoxious, because back then everything about Malfoy had been obnoxious. But now, god. Just the _thought_ of Malfoy with someone else feels like being stabbed in the heart. Harry’s not at all sure he’d survive the reality, even if he thinks there’d probably be less lolling and hair-touching—at least in public. They’re not sixteen anymore, after all, and Malfoy seems less inclined to public displays of affection these days. The few times Harry’s convinced Malfoy to fuck in public, it’s been places like a locker room shower, or a cubicle in the toilet of a club, and, other than the locker room shower which instead had involved Malfoy high on the elation of beating Harry to the Snitch, there’s always been alcohol involved. But for all that those places were semi-public, they were also places where they had reasonable expectations of privacy. The rest of the time, he’s chaste as can be when they’re not in either Harry’s house or Malfoy’s flat. At first Harry had thought it was because Malfoy was afraid of being caught by someone who knew them, since none of their friends know about the _benefits_ side of their friendship. But he’s like that everywhere, even in the Muggle world where they don’t know anyone and no one knows them, so by now Harry’s pretty sure it’s just how Malfoy is. But still. Now that Harry knows what sorts of things Malfoy gets up to in private, Harry wouldn't be able to stop imagining it even if Malfoy and his new partner never so much as kiss in front of him.

“Everything all right?” Malfoy asks, breaking through Harry’s thoughts. “You look like you’ve bitten into a lemon.”

“Hm? Oh, sorry. Mind’s on other things.”

“Anything of interest?”

“Just thinking of all the paperwork this is going to generate,” Harry says with a shrug. “Shall we get back to it?”

Malfoy takes out his wand and the leatherbound book, and does indeed get back to it. He finishes off the dining room and butler’s pantry, and then works his way up the main set of stairs, then back down the servants’ stairs, then goes back up and tackles the first storey, starting with the servants’ quarters at the back of the house and working his way through the rest of the bedrooms.

“All right,” Harry says when Malfoy finishes the final room on the first storey. They’ve only got the upper floors left, the bedrooms on the second storey plus the attic, but by now the light’s gone warm coppery-gold and will be sliding into the soft grey of twilight in no time. “We need to figure out what we’re going to do from here.”

Malfoy looks over at him. “What do you mean?”

“It’s getting close to dark. I don’t really like the idea of spending the night here…”

“…but the alternative is you breaking us out and Merlin knows what that will do to the magic in this place.” Malfoy turns his longing gaze to the next set of stairs and sighs. “I’m no closer to working out what’s going on or how to undo it than I was this morning.”

Now Harry sighs. “So spending the night it is.”

“Give me tomorrow,” Malfoy says. “I’d like to at least finish taking samples. If I still haven’t made a dent in figuring out exactly what’s going on here by the end of the day, we’ll risk Apparating out.”

“Right. Well, let me just let Ron know where we are so he doesn’t send out a search team when we don’t turn up at the pub tonight.”

“No active magic,” Malfoy cautions.

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Harry says, digging through his jacket pockets.

The mobile phone he pulls out is a cheap thing, and it takes Harry long minutes to peck out a text to Hermione, for her to pass along to Ron. She’s always on him to upgrade to something more modern—apparently phones now have the internet on them, and GPS and music and a camera and on and on—but Harry doesn’t see the point. Hermione uses hers to keep in touch with her parents and extended Muggle family, but Harry lives firmly in the wizarding world, and it’s not as if he’s going to be texting Aunt Petunia anytime soon, is he? His old flip phone is good enough to keep around for emergencies like this one. Getting anything fancier would be a waste.

The reply from Hermione is almost instantaneous and so long that his phone automatically breaks it up into three separate texts. Half of it is an admonishment for not reaching out sooner, the rest is questions about the case.

“Christ,” Harry mutters, because if he has to peck out answers to all of that he’s going to be here all fucking night, and who honestly thought it’d be a good idea to make it so it takes _four_ button pushes to type a bloody letter S?

 _Safe._ Harry painstakingly types out, ignoring the bulk of her text. _Will check in later_.

Apparently that’s not good enough because a moment later his phone rings in his hand, blaring out a tinny tune. Malfoy raises his eyebrows. Harry rolls his eyes in response as he presses the green button and raises the phone to his ear.

“Hermione, I told you I’m safe.”

“You are trapped in a haunted house, Harry! You are _not_ safe!”

Her voice comes through loud enough that Malfoy, standing several feet away, winces. Likely in sympathy for Harry’s poor eardrum.

“You do know that this is my job. Besides, I’m not alone, we’ve got everything under control,” he says, but Hermione’s not listening.

“I’m putting on my shoes _right now_ , Harry. Text me the address—”

There’s a brief scuffling sound, and then Ron’s voice comes on the line. “Harry,” he says. “Are you bleeding?”

“What? No!”

“Are you otherwise in imminent danger of dying?”

“No,” Harry says, exasperated.

“Right. I’ll see you at the pub tomorrow night, then?”

“That’s the plan,” Harry says.

“Right,” Ron says again. “I’ll Floo the Ministry to get the details of the case you caught and be on standby if you need backup. Check in first thing tomorrow?”

“First thing,” Harry promises.

“Right,” Ron says a third time. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow, then. Be safe.”

“Always am,” Harry replies, and snaps the phone shut and puts it away again.

“Is Granger on her way?” Malfoy asks.

Harry shakes his head. “No. Ron’s probably sitting on her right now to keep her from running out the door, but we’re on our own. I told them I’d check in tomorrow morning.”

“Smart,” Malfoy says and then changes the subject away from Hermione. She’s mostly forgiven Malfoy by now for his part in the war, but she certainly doesn’t like him, and he tends to give her a wide berth in return. “What else have you got to eat in that jacket of yours?”

It’s sandwiches again for dinner, salami this time, with more crisps, and chocolate biscuits for dessert. Malfoy follows his up with a cigarette.

The light is fading fast by the time Harry stows their rubbish and Malfoy finishes his cigarette, and at this time of year it’ll be a long time 'til sunrise. He’s got a couple of electric torches, including one where the handle slides back to turn it into a lantern, but Harry doesn’t know how long they’ll last. Probably long enough to get them to bedtime. He makes a mental note to lay in a supply of extra batteries the next time he restocks the jacket. For now, though, there’s still plenty of light to see by, but Harry would like to get settled in for the night before it goes dark.

“So. Where do you want to set up for the night?”

“Downstairs, I think,” Malfoy says, and Harry follows his gaze to the pair of hiking boots sitting innocuously near the side of the bed. “I know we’re locked in, but I’d really feel better if we’re nearer the door.”

“Agreed,” Harry says, and together they troop back down the stairs.

The entryway is by far the clearest space, with only a coatrack, an incidental table holding an array of dusty knickknacks, and a moth-eaten Persian rug covering the dusty floor. Even though he’s been over this space more than thoroughly, Malfoy goes over it again, circling slowly with his wand in one hand and the modified pocket watch balanced on the palm of his other.

“Anything?” Harry asks when Malfoy finishes up and clicks the watch shut again, even though he can tell by the way Malfoy’s frowning that he hasn’t been able to figure out anything more about this place’s magic.

And if the frown hadn’t already told him, Harry would have known a moment later when Malfoy takes out his lighter and clicks it open and shut, open and shut. “Nothing,” he says. He gazes through the open doorway, staring at the fussily-upholstered furniture crowded into the sitting room. “As much as I don’t relish a night spent on the floor, I’m not sure that I trust anything in this place.”

“Honestly, the floor’s probably more comfortable,” Harry says. The old furniture he’d cleared out of Grimmauld Place had been marginally more modern than this stuff, and every last piece of it was hideously uncomfortable. “But luckily, I’ve got something better.”

Harry will never ever—not even if he lives to be a thousand years old—be able to thank the universe enough for allowing Hermione to be part of his life. She’s saved his arse more times than he can count by this point, both literally and figuratively.

This is one of the former, because Harry doesn’t even want to think about how sore he would be if he had to spend the night sleeping on the hard wooden floor with only his jacket bunched up under his face for a makeshift pillow. He’s far too old for that shit.

Instead, he’s got a cot, which certainly isn’t anything fancy, but he’s slept on it before—just once, on a stakeout where he and another Auror were taking shifts—and it’s comfortable enough. It’s also going to be a very tight fit with the two of them tucked into it. They’ll have to cuddle up pretty close to keep from tipping over the edge onto the floor, and Harry’s stomach thrills at the thought of spending the whole night with Malfoy in his arms.

It’s a little sad how excited he is. But just like Malfoy’s stupid no kissing rule, he’s stuck just as firmly to his no spending the night rule, and Harry’s done his best to respect both even though sometimes all he wants to do is _push_ about it and see if maybe Malfoy’s willing to bend. Maybe Malfoy’s feelings toward Harry have shifted, just as Harry’s have for him. Maybe Malfoy also wants to kiss him, wants to spend the night wrapped up warm in Harry’s arms. Because Malfoy has never liked admitting he’s wrong about something, so of course he wouldn’t want to be the one to admit that he’s fallen in love with Harry and that his stupid rules were stupid in the first place and now he wants to take them back.

It’s a lovely little fantasy, one that Harry settles into most nights before he goes to sleep, wraps himself up in it and lets it unfurl through his drowsy mind. By now it’s worn soft and warm as his favourite blanket, and now he’s finally going to get to experience the reality of it.

He feels almost giddy as he pulls the cot out of his pocket, his brain screaming in protest for a second as the cot somehow stretches and balloons at once in a way that utterly defies the laws of physics, expanding to full size once it clears his jacket. And yeah, Harry’s been part of this world long enough to know that physical laws are more _suggestions_ where magic’s involved, but there are still some things that wig him entirely, and something bigger fitting into something smaller is one of them.

“Ta-da,” he says with a stupid little flourish, and immediately wishes he hadn’t. He’d love to know what it is about Malfoy that turns him into a shambling moron.

“Impressive,” Malfoy says dryly.

Harry’s already poking through his pockets, pulling out a pillow and a couple of blankets. He tosses them on the bed, and Malfoy moves the pillow to one end of the cot, shaking out one of the blankets and draping it over the mattress and leaving the other one folded at the foot. Harry searches for a third blanket but comes up empty. The house is chilly, and they’ll be taking off their coats to sleep. Oh, well. Harry supposes they’ll just have to keep each other warm, then.

“Well, this will make the night more comfortable, at least,” Malfoy says. “Have you got anything in that jacket of yours to help us pass the time? Gobstones? Exploding Snap?”

“Mm, I can think of a whole lot of far more interesting ways we can pass the time,” Harry says, moving in close. “Especially now that we’ve got a bed.”

Malfoy dodges him neatly. “We’re at work, Potter,” he says chidingly.

“Well, not _really_ ,” Harry says. “We’re more like, on a break while at work. That’s different. Totally fine.”

Malfoy eyes him sceptically. “Bending your own rules?”

Harry stares him down. “Are you saying you’d rather spend the night playing Exploding Snap?” It’s not an idle threat; he has actually got a deck of cards stashed in the jacket.

“Of course not,” Malfoy says indignantly, like it’s a grievous insult to even think of him turning down Harry’s cock if it’s on offer. “I’m only saying, we agreed to no shenanigans at work.”

They had agreed to it, but that one had been Harry’s suggestion so he feels all right about pushing Malfoy on it. “I’d say this is a bit of extenuating circumstances, wouldn’t you? I mean, the bed’s tiny and we’re going to be stuck in it together all night long…”

Harry can practically see Malfoy’s resolve crumbling.

“Well,” he says slowly. “If you’re certain.”

“Oh, I am,” Harry says. “Now, come here.”

Malfoy steps into the open circle of Harry’s arms, and Harry sighs and relaxes into his embrace. Feeling Malfoy’s warm body pressed against his own feels like coming home after a very long day. Harry snuggles closer, holds him tighter, and tucks his nose against Malfoy’s shoulder, letting his eyes slip shut.

Malfoy’s coat smells like tobacco, and it makes Harry’s brain go a little fuzzy. He used to mistake this feeling as a craving for a cigarette—he’d sort of picked up smoking as part of his short-lived rebellious phase just after leaving Hogwarts, but hadn’t actually enjoyed it enough to stick with it for long—before he eventually worked out that this was more of a craving for Malfoy himself.

Slowly, and without moving very far from Malfoy, Harry pushes the coat open, slides it down his shoulders and slips it from his arms before tossing it aside. Underneath, Malfoy’s wearing a black V-neck sweater made of something luxuriously soft and (almost certainly) disgustingly expensive. Harry can’t resist sweeping his hands up and down Malfoy’s back.

Malfoy takes the chance to tug Harry’s jacket off and let it fall to the floor, and then he’s hauling the collar of Harry’s wool jumper aside to bite at his collarbone. And _oh_ , that’s nice, that’s really very nice. He slides his hands around Malfoy’s hips to grope at his arse—these fucking trousers, Harry’s been dying to peel them off Malfoy all bloody day—and Malfoy rewards him by grinding up against Harry. Fuck, if Harry trusted the walls in this place at all, he’d have Malfoy pushed up against the nearest one in no time.

It’s the best he can do to pivot them around and drop down onto the cot, pulling Malfoy down to straddle his lap as he does so. It breaks Malfoy’s mouth away from his collarbone, but that’s all right, Harry’s fine with it being his turn. He kisses his way up the long column of Malfoy’s throat and bites at his jaw before kissing his way back to that sensitive spot behind Malfoy’s ear that always makes him give a long, shaky exhale.

Harry _loves_ that exhale.

He thinks wistfully how nice it’d be to tip his chin up just a bit as Malfoy leans down to meet him and just snog for a while. Instead, Harry slides his hands up under Malfoy’s jumper and strokes gently up and down the shallow curve of his waist, and kisses Malfoy’s neck. In return, Malfoy weaves his fingers through Harry’s hair and tugs, drawing a low moan out of him.

“So,” Harry says, pulling back. His cock is beginning to make his trousers feel uncomfortably tight, and given the way Malfoy’s erection is tenting his trousers he’s very obviously in the same predicament. “Blowjobs?”

“Mm, I was thinking a fuck, actually. We’ve got this bed, after all. Seems a shame not to use it to the fullest extent…”

“You don’t need to convince me,” Harry says, because when has he ever needed convincing? Malfoy just shrugs in response.

Malfoy rolls himself off Harry’s lap to sit beside him on the cot, and Harry reaches down to the floor and snags his jacket, rummaging about in the inner pockets. He gets out the torch first, the one where the handle slides back to turn it into a lantern. It’ll be dark soon, so he clicks it on and sets it on the floor beside the cot before diving back into the jacket. A colourful array of condoms come tumbling out as he drags his hand free a moment later, bottle of lube clutched victoriously in his fist.

“Expecting a party?” Malfoy scoops up a few and sorts through them, eyebrows going up. Harry catches sight of _ultra thin_ on one and _latex free_ on another as Malfoy shuffles through them, and there’s no earthly reason why Harry should feel this embarrassed about condoms, of all things, when he and Malfoy have been getting up close and personal with each other’s cocks for more than two years now.

“Oh my god,” Harry sighs, flopping back on the cot and flinging one arm over his eyes. “Don’t make me explain. It’s embarrassing.”

“If it’s embarrassing that means I’ve absolutely got to hear it.” Malfoy tosses a _ribbed for her pleasure!_ onto Harry’s chest, and Harry bats it onto the floor.

“Hermione,” Harry says, putting his arm back over his eyes. “This jacket was a gift from Hermione. She worries about me, wants me to be prepared for anything.”

“Like an unexpected orgy?” Malfoy sounds deeply amused, damn him.

“Oh my god, shut up,” Harry says, kicking at him and missing entirely. “Safe sex is no laughing matter, and she had no idea whether I’d be screwing Muggles or witches or wizards or what. Of course, she didn’t just _ask_ me…”

“What, you’d have told her you were screwing me?”

“The jacket was from before you, arsehole, and at that point the only thing I was screwing was my right fist.” Harry drags his arm away from his eyes and gestures at the floor. “Which is why they’re all still here.” They’re all far older than the expiration dates printed on them, but Stasis Charms really are a marvelous thing.

Malfoy bends down and picks another one up off the floor, examining it. “Hm. And since then, there’ve only been witches or wizards, I assume?”

“There hasn’t been,” Harry says quickly. He sits up. It suddenly feels very important that Malfoy know this. “Anyone else, I mean. It wasn’t just Muggles that I wasn’t. There isn’t. There’s. Just you.”

“Oh,” Malfoy says awkwardly, because Harry has just gone and made this whole thing bloody awkward with his rambling and stammering. Malfoy turns the condom packet over, and then over again. “I. That’s. Thank you?”

Harry blinks. “Thank you?” he repeats. That’s not what he expected Malfoy to say.

“Well, it’s a rather nice compliment, isn’t it?” Malfoy says, seeming to recover himself somewhat. “Evidently I’m doing something right, if you’re not looking elsewhere to have your needs met.”

Really, it wasn’t exactly on purpose that he hasn’t slept with anyone else since that first time with Malfoy. At first it was only because it was convenient to not have to go out looking for sex if he wanted it, not that he had more than the vaguest idea how that would even work. All he had to do was call up Malfoy and ten minutes later they’d both be naked. And then after a while it was because Malfoy knew him, and yeah, the novelty of a new person was something that could be fun, but Harry prefers being with someone who knows him, who already knows what he wants and how he wants it and can be trusted to not go running straight off to the _Prophet_ afterward. And then the chocolate cake thing had happened, and it hit Harry like a bolt of lightning that it wasn’t just convenience that made him not interested in sleeping with anyone but Malfoy. And by then it was too late, he was already in it too deep to get back out again.

He doesn’t want anyone else. Not now, and possibly not ever.

It’s the _ever_ that really scares him.

“Malfoy,” Harry says seriously. “I need to be honest with you…” He sits up and takes one of Malfoy’s hands in his and holds it firmly. He looks deep into Malfoy’s eyes. Did he imagine the way Malfoy’s breath just caught? Malfoy’s watching him avidly, and Harry takes a steadying breath before he continues, “If there were NEWTs in fucking, I’d give you an O. Because you give me one every time. Sometimes even two or three if I’m very lucky.”

For a long moment, Malfoy just gapes at him. Then he snatches the pillow from the head of the cot and wallops Harry across the face with it. Laughing, Harry lets himself topple backwards, hands and knees jerking up protectively, trying uselessly to fight back as Malfoy thumps him with the pillow again. Harry likely just used up the rest of this case’s allotment of innuendos with that one, but it was entirely worth it.

“You're a complete shit, Harry Potter,” Malfoy tells him, but he’s smiling now. “I can’t believe how ridiculous you are.”

“Really?” Harry asks. He reaches out and fists his hand in Malfoy’s sweater, gives it a hard jerk to bring him down. Malfoy catches himself with one hand to either side of Harry’s head, leaving them nose-to-nose with that stupid pillow squashed between them. “I’d have thought you’d have some idea by now.”

Malfoy rolls his eyes. Up close like this, they really are the loveliest shade of grey. “Oh I do. Yet somehow you still manage to surprise me with the depths.”

“I’ll show you depths.”

“Oh for— That’s terrible. _You’re_ terrible,” Malfoy says, and yeah, that was probably the last one that Harry gets before Malfoy starts getting genuinely annoyed with him. “Just for that, you’re letting me fuck you tonight.”

He says it like Harry hasn’t heard him say _“Just for that, you’re fucking me tonight,”_ in that exact same tone of voice at least a dozen times. Malfoy’s pretty ridiculous himself, sometimes. Harry kind of loves it.

“Oh, well, if you insist,” Harry says, because honestly he was rather hoping it’d go this way. As much as he loves fucking Malfoy, sometimes he just needs a cock up his arse. And after giving Malfoy’s arse so much attention last night, it really is Harry’s turn. “I’m just as happy to let you show me depths instead.”

The next few minutes are spent with Malfoy trying to smother Harry with the pillow and Harry trying to shove him off the cot. That was _definitely_ the last one.

“You don’t mind?” Malfoy asks after their mutual ceasefire.

“What?” Harry genuinely has no idea what he’s talking about.

“Giving me a go at your arse,” Malfoy says. “You don’t mind?”

It’s so absurd that for a moment Harry can only stare blankly. Harry _loves_ being fucked, a fact that Malfoy ought to know well by now. “Why would I mind?”

“Well, I just thought you might want it the other way. You said you were thinking about my arse earlier,” Malfoy says.

“Yeah, and then you went and started talking about your dick,” Harry counters.

“Mm. I suppose I did, didn’t I?” Malfoy smiles lazily. “So you’ll let me?” He shifts on the mattress, sliding around behind Harry. His fingers hook into the collar of Harry’s jumper and tug it down. A moment later his lips brush the nape of Harry’s neck. “You’ll let me have you?”

“Keep doing that and I’ll let you have whatever you want.”

Malfoy bites down hard enough to sting, and then pulls harder at Harry’s collar and sucks a bruising kiss into the slope where neck and shoulder meet.

Harry groans. Malfoy has a thing for marking up Harry’s shoulders, particularly the backs of them. Covered up by his shirt, and not easily seen in a mirror, Malfoy once explained the appeal of it being for his eyes only. It’s weirdly possessive of Malfoy, given that they agreed that exclusivity wouldn’t be part of this friends-with-benefits thing. 

Harry gets it, to an extent. He thinks longingly of the yellowing bruises trailed up and down the insides of Malfoy’s thighs. Harry spent a good amount of time up close with them last night, fitting his fingers to them and pressing gently even though he knew that it wouldn’t feel any different to Malfoy. He’d sort of hoped to be able to see them again before they faded away entirely, but Harry supposes that if he doesn’t get to, it’ll just give him an excuse to replace them later.

Abruptly, Malfoy releases the collar of Harry’s jumper only to snag the hem and ruck it up. A moment later he sets to work sucking a series of biting kisses down Harry’s spine while his hands slip around to work the button and zip of Harry’s fly open. Harry reaches down to try to help, and Malfoy slaps his hands away before doing it himself, and his mouth reaches Harry’s waistband just in time for him to tug the trousers down to Harry’s thighs.

“Like this, I think,” Malfoy says. He sounds breathless and eager, and Harry just knows he’s in for it tonight. His cock jumps at the thought. “As much as I do enjoy you naked, I believe it’s best for us to keep as much of our clothing on as we can.”

They’ve done it like that before, when they’ve been too eager to wait even the minute it would take to strip down. Harry’s mind flashes back to the last time, when he bent Malfoy over the dining room table at his flat, Malfoy’s dark trousers digging into his pale thighs as his legs spread as wide as the constricting material would allow. Harry had pushed him down and held him there with one hand in the middle of his back and fucked him hard enough to make the dishes from their untouched dinner rattle against the tabletop. It’s been a while longer since Harry’s been on the receiving end for mostly-clothed sex, not since that time Harry convinced Malfoy to join him in the toilet cubicle of that club.

There’s a soft click as Malfoy pops the cap on the bottle of lube, and a second later it clicks again as he shuts it. Harry’s practically shivering in anticipation, skin tingling as he waits for Malfoy to make his move.

“Touch,” Malfoy says, the exact same way he warns _pressure_ before he pushes against Harry’s mental shields.

A moment later his fingers, a little chilly, brush over Harry’s arsehole. Harry braces himself in eager anticipation, but Malfoy keeps him waiting, teasing his fingers lightly over Harry’s hole, massaging gently. When Harry’s breathless with wanting, moaning and sighing and hitching his hips back to chase Malfoy’s touch, Malfoy finally indulges him in what he’s been waiting for.

Harry lets out a long, low groan as Malfoy slides one finger deep inside him, working it slowly in and out a few times before adding a second.

“Fuck,” Harry breathes as Malfoy unerringly finds his prostate and rubs at it. His cock is so hard it’s beginning to ache. “You are far too good at that.”

“I am a man of many talents,” Malfoy says, and Harry can hear the smile in his voice.

“Lucky me,” Harry says, and lets his head drop forward into the pillow.

After a few minutes, Malfoy withdraws his fingers and gives his hand a perfunctory wipe against Harry’s arse cheek, and Harry tries his best to wrestle down how desperate and empty he feels without Malfoy’s fingers inside him. Just a minute, just a minute and he’ll have something even better.

“So, do you have a preference about which one of these we’re using?” Malfoy asks, and Harry lifts his head and looks over to see him holding up a few of the condoms.

Harry blinks. “Why would we use one of those?”

“We’re still avoiding active magic,” Malfoy says. “Which means no Cleaning Charms. So. Unless you’d like to spend the rest of the night with my come leaking out of your arse…”

Normally Harry really likes that. Rather a lot. It makes him feel filthy in the very best sort of way, but that’s when he’s got access to either Cleaning Charms or a shower as soon as he decides he’s done. He thinks there’s a packet of wet wipes stashed in the jacket, but that’s rather a poor substitute for getting properly cleaned up. And as much as Harry had argued otherwise, they are still _technically_ on the job here. If there’s an emergency in the night, Harry would rather not be leaping up to face it with a squelchy bottom.

“Right,” Harry says. “That’s a really good point.”

“I thought you’d see it that way. So. Preference?”

Harry shakes his head, and Malfoy tosses all but one of the condoms onto the floor.

“Do you want me to—” Harry begins, reaching out, but Malfoy’s already tearing open the foil packet.

“Hm?” Malfoy asks, tugging the condom free and tossing the wrapper aside. He pinches the tip and lines it up over the head of his cock.

“How do you know how to—” Harry begins, but cuts himself off, feeling instantly foolish. Of course Malfoy knows how to do this. Harry knew that he’d done more during that year in Muggle London than learn to smoke, even if they’d never really talked about it in any sort of depth.

“Please,” Malfoy murmurs, expertly rolling the condom down his cock. “You don’t want to hear tales from my slutty, slutty past.”

Harry sort of does, but also really doesn’t. It’s always a bit of swallowing a bitter potion, hearing anything about Malfoy’s past relations, because it always makes him think about Malfoy’s future. Harry’s fine not being Malfoy’s first; what he really cares about is being Malfoy’s last.

In another life they’re in a happily-committed relationship, together forever, and Harry would get off on hearing tales from Malfoy’s self-proclaimed _slutty, slutty past_ , because god knows Harry doesn’t have one of his own. There’d been Ginny, and then they broke up and that was pretty much that until that one beautiful, drunken night that he and Malfoy had first tumbled into bed together. Harry had been too afraid to hook up with anyone magical lest it end up in the papers the next morning, and the idea of having to lie about that much of himself to a Muggle hadn’t appealed at all. But Malfoy evidently hadn’t had that same issue, and in Harry’s fantasy it’d be something of a thrill to hear all about it, because Harry would know that those days are firmly behind Malfoy and Harry’s the one who gets every day from here on out.

Malfoy’s watching him with a frown. “Are you concerned that… Harry, there’s been no one else for me, not since we began our arrangement. I’d tell you if there was.” Harry’s heart actually misses a beat before Malfoy adds, “I take your safety very seriously, you know. I’d tell you if we needed to be taking precautions.”

“Oh,” Harry says quietly, reassured and disappointed all at once. It’s true that their protective charms had grown spotty and then fallen by the wayside altogether a few months into their arrangement. Harry had hoped that that’s what it’d meant, but had been so afraid of hearing otherwise that he’d recklessly not asked.

“And honestly, when would I have the time?” Malfoy asks. “Or the energy, for that matter. You wear me out, Scarhead.”

He says it so fondly that Harry’s heart practically melts and he very nearly kisses him, rules be damned. Harry recovers at the last moment, redirects and bites at Malfoy’s jaw, then sucks a line of bruising kisses down his neck, ones that come _thisclose_ to leaving marks. Malfoy lets his head loll back, and his breathing goes deep and heavy in that way that tells Harry that he’s pushing all the right buttons.

Suddenly, half-clothed sex isn’t nearly as appealing. Harry wants to climb into Malfoy’s lap and ride him just like this, and he’d do it right now if his stupid bloody trousers weren’t in the way.

“Malfoy,” Harry breathes between kisses. “I need you to fuck me. I need you. Please. I’m so—god, I need you.”

Malfoy’s breath hitches and his hands tighten around Harry’s hips. “If you weren’t wearing your stupid bloody trousers right now, I’d pull you down onto my cock and fuck you just like this.”

Harry leaves off Malfoy’s neck with a delighted little laugh. “I was just thinking the same thing.”

“Alas,” Malfoy says, reaching for the lube. “Next time. How would you like to do this? Turn around and sit on me? Hands and knees?”

“Hands and knees,” Harry says. He’d love to do it the other way too, sitting on Malfoy’s lap with his back pressed to Malfoy’s chest, but he likes that way best when he’s able to drape his legs over Malfoy’s, letting Malfoy’s knees nudge them wider and wider until Harry’s spread wantonly over Malfoy’s lap as Malfoy fucks into him from below.

They shuffle around on the narrow cot, Harry getting down onto his hands and knees and Malfoy getting into position behind him. He hears the click of the lube cap again, and then the soft wet sounds of Malfoy slicking it over his cock. A moment later Malfoy recaps the lube and tosses it up by Harry’s elbow.

His finger pushes back into Harry’s arse for a moment, then he swipes the extra lube on his hand over Harry’s arse. Both hands settle on Harry’s hips, holding him steady as he gently nudges the tip of his cock against Harry’s arsehole, wordlessly asking if Harry’s ready to go.

Harry shoves his hips back, sending Malfoy’s cock slipping up over his tailbone, and he’s rewarded by a low chuckle.

“Eager, aren’t we?”

“Fuck me and find out,” Harry says. It comes out like a challenge, and Malfoy laughs and gives his arse a little slap.

Malfoy steadies himself with one hand as he begins to push slowly in, each shallow thrust sliding a little deeper than the one before it as Harry breathes through it, letting his body adjust. He’s so careful about it, gentle in a way that Harry would never have believed Malfoy capable of before they’d fallen into bed together. Finally, _finally_ , Malfoy’s hips bump against Harry’s arse. He pauses for a second before withdrawing, then pushes forward again.

Harry groans and lets his head fall forward, forehead pressed down into the mattress, panting open-mouthed against the blanket. Malfoy’s fingers dig in around his hips, so hard he’s sure to have bruises there tomorrow. Malfoy does that sometimes, and Harry fucking loves it, loves wearing the marks Malfoy's left on him. It’s a bit of a thrill, hiding them beneath his clothes and going about his day, to work, grocery shopping, dinner with his friends. Malfoy’s so polished and put-together, it’s a rush that Harry’s the one to make him break the iron grip he keeps on his self-control. 

But then, Harry’s always been the one to do that, hasn’t he? 

A particularly hard thrust at just the right angle makes Harry’s whole body jerk, riding that perfect line between _too much_ and _not enough_ , leaving him trembling and torn between trying to push closer and trying to pull away. God, it feels so good to have Malfoy inside him, thick cock stretching him open, pressing in so deep. Harry loves this, wants to keep it forever.

Malfoy’s breath hitches in that way that tells Harry he’s close. His thrusts come harder, quicker, as he works himself toward his own completion.

Harry lolls his head to the side, and catches sight of himself in the mirror. He’s flushed, hazy-eyed with pleasure, looking utterly debauched with his jumper pushed halfway up his back and his trousers pulled halfway down his thighs. Malfoy’s long legs in those infernal trousers of his bracket Harry’s shins, his hands clutch at Harry’s hips as he slams him back onto his cock over and over. And Malfoy’s face—

Harry startles, his stomach jumping in a potent mixture of embarrassment and delight to see that Malfoy’s figured out the mirror’s perfect angle before he did. He meets Malfoy’s eyes in the glass, and Malfoy gives him a little smile. He’s flushed pink with exertion, hair falling over his forehead, eyes dark with lust. 

As Harry watches, Malfoy very deliberately reaches down and slides his fingers through Harry’s hair, slowly closing his hand into a fist. Harry’s scalp, his neck, the whole length of his spine tingle in anticipation for long seconds before Malfoy pulls, hauling him up and settling Harry back against his thighs. He keeps pulling, and Harry obediently bares his throat.

And then Malfoy reaches his peak, and Harry watches Malfoy’s orgasm rush over him. His head tips back, his throat working as his breath catches in time with the way his cock throbs in Harry’s arse. His brow furrows and his eyelids go heavy and throughout it, his gaze never leaves Harry’s.

Then it passes and Malfoy’s head thuds against Harry’s shoulder. He breathes quietly, deeply. then presses a soft kiss to the nape of Harry’s neck.

“Close?” he murmurs into the back of Harry’s jumper.

“God, yes,” Harry says, because after that, how could he not be nearly there?

Malfoy reaches down and wraps a hand around his cock, working him in firm, quick strokes just the way Harry likes, and Harry’s pleasure mounts higher, higher, higher. He whines low in his throat. The instant before he comes, he thinks inanely, _Shit, the blanket…_ , and then the building wave of pleasure crests and sweeps away all conscious thought. 

He looks down to find that Malfoy’s managed to produce a handkerchief—monogrammed, of course—and caught Harry’s spend neatly.

“Thanks for that,” Harry says as Malfoy folds up the soiled handkerchief.

“Unfortunately this bed’s so narrow that if you’d come on it, there wouldn’t be a wet spot or a wet side. It’d just be wet, full stop, and we’d both be sleeping in it,” Malfoy says. 

Harry flops to one side and shifts, watching sleepily as Malfoy expertly tugs the condom off his cock and knots it, then tucks it into the handkerchief. After a moment of obvious indecision, he sets it on the floor beside his coat. There’s some shuffling around as they both pull their trousers and pants back up and get themselves under the sheet and blanket. Malfoy shakes the second blanket out and tugs it up over both of them. There’s some more shuffling around as they both figure out how to fit together on the narrow mattress.

He’d been right when he’d envisioned this; they’re practically wrapped around each other. Harry doesn’t mind at all. Malfoy smells warm and a little sweaty—the good kind of sweaty, not the gross out-playing-Quidditch-all-afternoon-in-the-boiling-summer-heat kind—and vaguely of tobacco, the scent of it lingering in his hair and clinging to the fingers of the hand he has tucked under Harry’s chin.

“Is it safe for both of us to go to sleep at once, do you think?” Harry asks through a poorly-smothered yawn. “We could sleep in shifts.”

Malfoy frowns, thinking it through. “I don’t know. It’s not done anything to us since it trapped us in. I still can’t tell much about the magic in here, but it almost feels like it’s… waiting.”

“Waiting for what?”

“That’s the question, isn’t it? But we’ve been in here all day and haven’t set anything off. I’d say it’s probably safe to sleep.”

“Well, you’re the expert,” Harry says.

Maybe it was a bad decision to have sex. Maybe breaking their no-sex-at-work rule was a mistake. He always gets so sleepy after fucking, and the thought that maybe he’d be more inclined to sacrifice half his night of sleep in the name of caution if he weren’t blissfully post-orgasmic briefly crosses his mind. 

But he’s warm and drowsy, and Harry is weak. The temptation of getting to spend a whole night with Malfoy in his arms is more than he’s able to resist.

“Goodnight, then,” Malfoy says.

“Goodnight,” Harry echoes. He clicks off the lantern and sets it on the floor next to the cot, then settles in.

* * *

The reality of waking up after falling asleep with Malfoy doesn’t hold up at all to Harry’s fantasies.

He’d always imagined waking up to warm morning sunshine, warm sheets, and Malfoy warm beside him, sleepy morning cuddles giving way to sleepy morning sex. Instead, he wakes suddenly, disoriented and overheated from sleeping in his clothes. It’s dark, and Malfoy’s tangled around him like a bloody octopus, huffing hot breaths directly into Harry’s face, and Harry desperately needs to pee.

Squashed together as they are in the narrow cot, it takes some doing to disentangle himself from Malfoy without waking him. There’s a precarious moment where Malfoy comes a hairsbreadth from kneeing Harry in the bollocks when he flops onto his stomach, taking over every inch of the mattress Harry’s just vacated, and another where Harry’s foot tangles in the blanket and he nearly falls onto his arse, but he eventually makes it out of the cot unscathed. 

Carefully, Harry slides his hand beneath the pillow and comes up with a wand. His or Malfoy’s he can’t really tell in the dark, but he knows that Malfoy’s wand responds just as readily as his own so either will do. There’s enough light seeping in from the streetlights outside for him to make his way across the entryway, but the windowless hallway will be darker and Harry doesn’t much fancy breaking his neck on the stairs when he’s going for the toilet on the next floor. He’d never hear the end of it from Malfoy, for one.

“ _Lumos_ ,” he murmurs through a yawn, and the tip of his wand flares bright a split second before Harry remembers he’s not supposed to be using active magic.

He’s got a few seconds to ponder whether a _Finite_ would make things better or worse when Dark magic rises up around him and crashes down on him from all sides. It feels like he’s trapped inside a church bell that’s just been struck. Harry thinks he screams but he can’t hear it over the roaring in his head, each beat of his heart pounding like a timpani in his ears, every inch of him inside and out vibrating so that he feels as if he’s shaking apart. It hurts, fuck it hurts, and Harry can’t think beyond the pain, can’t think beyond the roaring, can’t think, if he could only _think_ …


	3. Chapter 3

“Where were you just now, mate?”

The world rushes back into focus around Harry, momentarily disorienting him. Dim golden light, wall-to-wall people, the sounds of shouting and laughter and a dozen conversations layered into something soothingly unintelligible. A typical pub on a typical Saturday night.

“I…” Harry looks up at Ron, frowns a little. “Sorry. Head’s still stuck on my last case.”

“Need to talk it through?” Ron offers easily, because he’s an Auror too and he understands how that happens sometimes, and how sometimes it helps to get it out. He sets one of the two pint glasses he’s holding on the scarred wooden tabletop before Harry, then takes a seat across from him.

They’re in their usual booth. Everything around him is perfectly normal, and Harry does his best to shake off the feeling of unease that’s still holding him firmly in its grip.

“No, it’s fine,” Harry says, taking the pint glass. It’s cold and wet against his palm. He lets go, flicks his wrist to shake off droplets of condensation. He wipes his damp fingers on the edge of the table, leaving damp trails across the wood. “We wrapped it up…”

He trails off, frowning again. He must have wrapped it up. Right? He’s here at the Golden Griffin, just like any other time he’s wrapped a case. So obviously he and Malfoy must have finished up with the cursed mansion.

It’s just, for the life of him, he can’t remember _how_.

Or why Malfoy’s not here with him now. He usually joins Harry, after they finish up a case together. They come here, they have a few pints with Ron and whoever else joins them, and then they go home together and have sex. Malfoy wouldn’t have skipped out on this, and if he had, Harry would have gone with him and they’d have skipped straight to fucking.

They were together at the mansion. They’d gone inside. They’d begun investigating. They’d been locked in. They’d had sex. They’d gone to sleep. And then… 

Nothing. It’s like there’s a great gaping blank in Harry’s memory. 

His hand tightens around his drink. Cold, smooth glass against his palm, slippery with condensation. It grounds him, helps him find his centre while his head is spinning. Because he should remember, and has no idea why he doesn’t.

Harry lets go of the glass and wipes his damp fingers on the table. “And that was that,” he finishes, a few beats too late.

Ron laughs a little. “It was that exciting, huh?”

Harry forces a little laugh to match. “Yeah, I guess it was.”

Ron goes on to talk about one of his own cases, but Harry’s barely listening. Inwardly, he’s straining to remember how he and Malfoy wrapped up the cursed mansion. Even if it was boring, Harry should still remember how it happened. At the very least, he knows he should remember waking up with Malfoy in the morning. It was the first time they’d spent the night together like that, and Harry knows—he _knows_ —that he wouldn’t have forgotten it. Not after the sheer number of hours he’d spent dreaming of it. All those nights after one of their trysts, after Malfoy had gone home, leaving Harry alone in his bed, staring up at his dark ceiling and trying to stop his stupid stubborn brain from imagining what it would be like to have Malfoy there beside him in the morning. The way his skin would be so soft and warm with sleep, the way the smell of him would linger on Harry’s sheets, how the warm soft light of morning would make his pale skin glow, turn his platinum hair to gold.

In his wildest fantasies, Harry rolls over and presses a sleepy kiss to Malfoy’s mouth. He wouldn’t have done that this morning, of course, but Harry’s also had a whole series of fantasies about the slope where Malfoy’s neck and shoulder meet, about how soft and warm it would feel beneath a gentle brush of his lips, and how Harry would tuck his nose in and breathe in the smell of his sleepy skin. Kissing his way along Malfoy’s collarbones was perfectly fine, as per their rules, and Harry would have tugged the V-neck of his sweater aside and taken full advantage of that. He _knows_ he would have. They probably would have had sex again. Harry usually wakes up horny, and Malfoy hasn’t turned him down yet.

So why can’t he remember?

Harry takes a sip of his pint and nods along with Ron’s story, still turning over in his mind just what the fuck is happening to him.

The door to the pub bursts open, and the very air seems to tremble with the force of it, reverberating like the inside of a bell. Harry’s wand leaps unbidden into his hand as he surges to his feet.

Malfoy stands in the doorway, his face and hair a pale shock against the inky blackness behind him. Are the streetlights out? Is there an emergency outside? Harry looks at the window next to their booth but he can’t see anything past the reflection of his own startled face. Still standing in the doorway, Malfoy scans the pub. When his eyes meet Harry’s an instant later, something desperate blooms through his expression. He shoves forward through a crowd of people standing between them. He’s too far away and the pub’s too loud for Harry to hear him, but Harry knows intimately the shape of his name in Malfoy’s mouth.

“Harr—” Malfoy begins, reaching for him.

* * *

“— _rrrryyyyyyyy! Happy birthday to youuuuu_!”

Harry blinks, startled. “What?”

“Blow them out!” Ron says, as Hermione nudges him with her elbow and adds, “Make a wish!” while off-key in the background Ginny warbles, “ _And many moooorrre_!”

Harry blows out his candles on pure reflex, and the room erupts into cheers and applause.

He’s at the Burrow. All his friends and family are around him. It’s his birthday?

“Here, love,” Molly says, bustling over with a large knife in one hand and a stack of dessert plates balanced in the other. “Let me get that for you…”

But Harry’s too busy staring at the cake, with thirty candles standing up in the thick, chocolate frosting. Harry remembers this cake. He’d had it just a few months ago, when he’d turned thirty… the first time? The deliciously fudgey frosting, the cake itself moist and dense and perfectly chocolatey in the way that makes you crave a glass of milk to go with it. He knows this. He _knows_. He had two slices here at the Burrow, and Molly packed up the leftovers for him to take home, and then he and Malfoy ate them over the sink later that night, naked and still a little sweaty from a truly spectacular fuck—Malfoy had said he was going to make Harry come thirty times in a row but Harry tapped out at three, and they’d gone into the kitchen for the leftover cake. Malfoy had ended up with a little smudge of chocolate frosting at the corner of his mouth. That was the first time Harry ever thought about breaking Malfoy’s stupid rule about kissing. He’d spent the rest of the evening quietly panicking about how badly he’d wanted to lick it off.

He’d had a full-blown crisis about it after Malfoy had gone home, and that sort of complete mental meltdown tends to leave a hell of an impression. He’s not wrong about this. He remembers. He _knows_.

“This isn’t right,” he says, looking around. No one else seems to notice that anything’s amiss. “I can’t be turning thirty.”

Beside him, Ron rolls his eyes and nudges Harry with an elbow. “Tell me about it,” he says. “I can’t believe we’re all so _old_.”

“Just wait til you get to be my age, dear,” Molly said, passing Harry a plate loaded down with an enormous slice of lemon chiffon cake.

Harry looks back at the remainder of the cake on the table as Molly sinks the big knife in to cut another slice. The fluffy lemon frosting dimples around the knife as it slices through, in that way that promises the cake beneath it will be melt-in-your-mouth tender.

There are thirty-one candles on it.

“Wait,” Harry says. “That’s not… I was just thirty.”

Hermione snorts. “Well, that is how birthdays work,” she says, amusement making her eyes twinkle. “You were thirty, and now you’re thirty-one, and next year you’ll be thirty-two…”

A bubble of fear makes Harry’s chest go tight and he looks back at the cake. It’s still lemon chiffon. There are still thirty-one candles on it.

“No,” Harry says. “Wait. Just a minute ago I said I can’t be turning thirty, and you made a joke about how you can’t believe we’re so old.”

Ron frowns a little. “Yeah, but you said thirty-one.”

“No I didn’t,” Harry says. “I said thirty. I’m sure I said thirty.”

He can feel himself starting to panic. That bubble of fear in his chest is expanding, pressing on his ribs and making it hard to breathe.

“Harry,” Hermione says gently. So terribly gently that Harry’s heart kicks, his panic ratcheting higher, because she never uses that gentle voice unless something is very, very wrong. “You said thirty-one.”

“No I didn’t,” Harry insists. He’s getting louder and a wash of old fear wells up through him because now he’s attracting attention, the other conversations around the room are quieting and he’s _making a scene_ and he’s going to ruin the party. “I’m sure I didn’t, I’m _sure_ —”

“Harry,” Hermione says gently, insistently. She loops her arm through his and squeezes tight. “Come on, now. Come on, you’re fine. Just—”

* * *

“—come on!”

Hermione gives his arm a tug and Harry stumbles over the kerb. It’s daytime. He’s in the middle of Diagon Alley. He yanks his arm free, and Hermione whirls around to face him.

“Don’t even,” she says in that tone of hers that’s half-playful and half-menacing. “You _promised_ you’d come with me and I’m holding you to it.”

“I…” Harry begins, trying to work out what the fuck is going on.

“Look, didn’t I go with you to that exhibition of Quidditch equipment through the ages when Ron had to work?” Hermione asks.

“Well, yeah, you did, but…”

“And didn’t you end up enjoying yourself when I made you go to that wine tasting with me?”

He had. They’d both ended up giggly and half-drunk, and they took a long meandering walk around Diagon Alley, and then through Muggle London, arms linked, talking about everything and nothing until they sobered up enough to Apparate. Plus, Harry had actually learned something from it, and the look of surprise on Malfoy’s face when Harry ordered a wine that paired perfectly with their meals the next time they went out to dinner would have made it entirely worth it on its own, even if he hadn’t had a wonderful evening out with Hermione. “Well, yeah, but…”

“Then come on,” Hermione says again, tugging at his arm.

Harry tugs back, resisting. Hermione looks back at him questioningly, and then her gaze catches on the shop to their right.

“Oh, well, if you’d like to. We’re a little early so we’ve got time.”

Harry looks over. They’re standing outside of Quality Quidditch.

“Go on,” Hermione says fondly. “We both know you want to.”

Harry gives her a faint smile and steps up to the window. He’s not so much interested in the racing broom on prominent display as he is in having a moment to figure out what the fuck is going on. 

Two hands slam into the glass between them, and he’s already jolting back from the window when he registers Malfoy’s pale face. Malfoy bangs his hands on the glass again and he’s shouting something, his mouth moving, forming words. Harry catches the shape of his name.

He catches genuine fear in Malfoy’s eyes

“Malfoy? What are you—”

Harry’s standing in front of the display window of Flourish and Blotts, and Hermione is tugging on his elbow and asking, “You don’t mind if we go in, do you? We’ve still got time.”

Harry yanks his arm free. “But—Quidditch—” He looks wildly around. There’s no sign of Malfoy.

“Oh, we already did that, Harry. You can give me just a few minutes in here.” She pulls him inside, the bell on the door tinkling merrily.

“No, Malfoy was there. He was there in Quality Quidditch,” Harry insists as he lets Hermione lead him inside the shop.

“Harry!” 

Harry whirls around and there he is again, shoving his way through the bustling crowd on the street outside as he chases after Harry. The door falls shut in another merry tinkling of bells, cutting off Harry’s glimpse of Malfoy. He jerks free of Hermione’s grasp, wrenches the door open and lurches through—

* * *

—and trips over the doormat. Hermione catches his elbow. “Careful, there!” she says, laughing as Harry regains his balance. “All right?”

He’s standing inside the small living room of the little cottage that Ron and Hermione share. He can hear the soft murmur of the wireless turned down low. Something smells delicious, warm and garlicky, and Harry can hear the rhythmic _tock-tock-tock_ of a knife striking a cutting board.

“Did Harry trip over the mat again?” Ron calls from the kitchen.

“Fuck off,” Harry calls back automatically. “If you’d just get rid of that old thing.” One of the corners curls up and Harry’s always catching his toe on it.

“I keep telling him that,” Hermione says quietly to Harry, “but—”

“It’s still perfectly good!” Ron calls from the kitchen, with Hermione parroting it right along with him.

Hermione gestures with one hand toward the kitchen doorway in a _see what I put up with?_ sort of way, and normally their domestic antics would make his heart go warm and kind of melty, but Harry’s still stuck on how he knows about the mat when he’s never seen it before in his life.

“Harry?” Hermione asks gently, touching her fingers lightly to his elbow.

A bright flash lights the room starkly, and the loud crack of thunder that follows an instant later makes Harry startle. He whips his head around to look out the window.

It’s raining outside. It was sunny in Diagon Alley and now it’s dark and raining. Wasn’t that this afternoon? Harry has no idea. He doesn’t know what day it is now. Hermione was wearing a coat the whole time they were in Diagon and he has no idea if the soft beige jumper she’s wearing now was underneath it or not.

“Harry?” Hermione asks again, and her voice is edging toward that terribly gentle tone that Harry hates. “Harry, what’s wrong?”

Panic is winding up into a tight, prickly knot in the pit of his stomach, and the way Hermione’s talking to him only yanks it tighter. This is why he doesn’t like to come to Hermione with his problems, either she’s bulling her way forward to fix everything herself, or she’s talking to him _like this_ and—

Between one blink and the next, Harry’s suddenly standing in the kitchen with Ron.

Harry looks around. There’s a deep pan simmering away on the hob, chicken and onions and garlic and tomato and white wine. The cutting board and knife are laid out on a tea towel beside the sink, freshly washed and drying. There’s no sign of Hermione.

“Where is she?”

“Shower,” Ron says, frowning a little. “Dinner’s nearly ready, she’ll be back in a minute.”

“But she—we were just—”

“It’s all right,” Ron says, pushing a warm mug of tea into Harry’s hands.

He takes the mug and curls his hands around the warm ceramic, and feels something coiled tight inside him loosen incrementally before he realises, a second later, that he never saw Ron make the tea.

The prickly knot in his stomach expands, shivering through his whole body. He has no idea what’s happening to him, and he’s terrified.

“I feel like I’m losing my mind.” Harry doesn’t mean to say it out loud. But so many little things aren’t adding up and no one else seems to even notice.

Ron sighs and sets his own mug down on the counter. He suddenly looks very serious. “I know that look. Things not adding up?”

Harry nods dumbly, and Ron sighs again.

“It’s the curse.”

“The curse?” Harry repeats.

“From the last case you worked,” Ron says. “The cursed house?”

“With Malfoy,” Harry says. “We went in and he was cataloguing the magic inside, and the house locked us in. I don’t remember anything past that night. I don’t remember how we got out.”

“You almost didn’t,” Ron says. “You nearly—”

Belatedly, Ron’s phrasing sinks in. “Wait, wait,” Harry interrupts. “You said… the last case I worked? I’m thirty-one now, I remember turning thirty-one, so it’s been at least…”

“That case was ten months ago,” Ron says.

Harry counts quickly in his head. That would make this September. And the last case he worked was in December. He hasn’t worked one since, according to Ron.

“So I’m… not an Auror anymore?”

“You are,” Ron reassures him quickly. Too quickly, and too practised. Like he’s had this conversation before, and Harry feels a little dizzy, a little sick. “Just because you’re working a desk doesn’t mean you’re not an Auror. You still do important work.”

Ron’s doing his best to make Harry feel better, and all it’s doing is making him feel worse. Because, yes, working a desk is solid work, important work, and the Auror Department would probably collapse in on itself without the paper pushers. But that’s not _Harry_ , that’s not who he is. And if he’s not getting out there and fighting the good fight, chasing down the bad guys and bringing them in, then what good is he?

“And someday I’m sure you’ll be able to get back out in the field,” Ron pushes on when Harry doesn’t say anything. “The Healers are really optimistic. Your last appointment at St Mungo’s went really well.”

“I…” Harry begins. He doesn’t remember his last appointment at St Mungo’s. He doesn’t remember much of anything. The first half of the cursed mansion case. The pub with Ron afterward. His thirty-first birthday. Shopping with Hermione. And now, this. A handful of snapshots for nearly a year of his life, with the rest of it a great gaping blank. “Curse damage.”

It’s an answer.

It’s certainly not the answer he wanted, but it’s a perfectly reasonable, completely logical answer. Curse damage. It’s a simple, reasonable, logical explanation for everything Harry’s been experiencing. The skipping time. Things changing between one blink and the next. These long gaps in his memory.

“Curse damage,” Harry says out loud again, weighing the words.

“Curse damage,” Ron echoes, and his voice goes a little strained. “I’m not going to lie, it was touch and go for a while there. You spent several weeks in St Mungo’s. We didn’t know if you were ever going to…”

“Ever going to…?” Harry prompts.

“Wake up,” Ron finishes tightly. “We still don’t know what happened, exactly. You came out to the pub with me afterward, and then out of nowhere you jumped up and a second later you just collapsed. I couldn’t wake you up.”

Which would explain why Harry didn’t remember going home. He just remembered Malfoy showing up, and then nothing. Lights out.

“I don’t remember,” Harry says. “What about Malfoy? Didn’t anyone ask him? Oh god, the same thing happened to him, didn’t it?” At least Harry’s able to work a desk while he recovers. But most of Malfoy’s job is already at a desk, and he relies on his keen memory to do it. If the same curse is affecting him then he won’t be able to work at all, and Malfoy’s job is practically his whole life. It’d kill him, not being able to work. “Is Malfoy as bad off as I am?”

Ron freezes for a moment, and then makes a face like he’s been hit with a Slug-vomiting Charm.

“Ron,” Harry says. A cold wash of fear sweeps through him. “What happened to Malfoy? Is he all right?”

“He’s…” Ron looks desperately to the doorway, but though the shower’s stopped running, Hermione has yet to reappear. Ron visibly steels himself and says, “Harry, I’m so sorry. He didn’t make it out of that mansion.”

There’s a perfectly timed crack of thunder that exactly matches the way his heart jolts at Ron’s words.

“No,” he says faintly. “That can’t be right.”

It can’t. Harry saw him at the pub the day after they’d gone to the mansion. He’d seen him again in Diagon Alley. _Twice_ in Diagon Alley. Malfoy can’t be dead.

Unless… Oh, god. Is Malfoy a ghost? But if he was, he ought to be stuck in the mansion. There’s no way he could be haunting Harry specifically. Can a ghost haunt a person? What if Malfoy’s unfinished business is Harry? Did Harry let him die? Was it all Harry’s fault?

“Breathe, Harry,” Ron says, rubbing a hand up and down Harry’s back.

At some point he’d turned away, bracing himself against the kitchen counter. For a moment Harry’s swamped by the memory of bracing himself on the porch railing, with Malfoy rubbing a hand up and down Harry’s back, just like this, it’d felt just like this. Abruptly, his skin feels like it’s crawling, and he wrenches himself away from Ron, his hand knocking into the mug of tea and sending it smashing to the floor.

“Harry, it’s all right. It’s all right, it’s fine— _Reparo!_ —everything’s fine,” Ron says, a little desperately. “Hermione!”

“Oh god,” he moans. Because it’s real, isn’t it? Malfoy is dead, and Harry’s losing what’s left of his curse-damaged mind.

“Do you need to sit down?” Ron asks. “Come on, in the living room. Why don’t we sit down.”

He tries to draw Harry away, out of the kitchen, but Harry plants his feet and won’t allow himself to be led.

“No, I’m fine. Sorry, I’m fine.”

“Harry…”

“I think I see him sometimes,” Harry admits before he loses his nerve. “Like he’s trying to reach out to me. Trying to tell me something.”

Ron claps Harry on the shoulder, his big hand warm and steady. “A perfectly natural reaction to grief,” he assures him. “But Harry, he’s been gone for almost a year. You need to let go of him. You need to move on.”

“Move on?”

The back door bangs open, slamming against the wall.

Harry recognises the coat first, and he could swear he catches a phantom whiff of tobacco. Malfoy’s soaking wet from the storm outside, hair plastered to his head, clothes dripping. He’s frozen in the doorway, one hand braced against the door and his wand clenched so hard in his other that his hand looks bloodless.

Wind howls behind him, lashing rain against the window like a flung handful of gravel, and another flash of lightning turns Malfoy pale as a ghost. The crash of thunder reverberates through Harry’s chest, momentarily drowning out his pounding heart.

Harry looks to Ron, but Ron is gone. Harry is alone in the kitchen with Malfoy. Lightning flashes again, and another crack of thunder rattles the window panes.

“Harry,” Malfoy says, reaching for him. He’s leaving muddy footprints on the kitchen floor.

“No,” Harry says, taking a step back. “You can’t be here. You’re dead.”

“Is that what it’s told you?” Malfoy demands. He’s wild-eyed, and honestly a little bit terrifying. Harry’s heart beats faster. “Of course it—fuck—never mind. Harry, I need you to listen to—”

* * *

“—me?”

Harry’s head jerks up. He’s in the Ministry. He’s in his cubicle in the Auror Department, sat in his chair, with a file spread out over his desk in front of him. There’s a witch in the doorway, her curly black hair twisted up in a bun with her wand jabbed through it.

“Erm, sorry, yes?”

“No problem,” the witch says, and her smile is gentle and a little pitying. It sets Harry’s teeth on edge. “I was just wondering whether you’d finished up the file for the Chislett case for me?”

“And who are you?” His voice comes out sharper than he’d meant it to, impatient and a little cold, and Harry would probably be embarrassed about it if he weren’t so bloody angry at the way she’s still smiling at him.

The witch’s infuriatingly kind smile doesn’t even waiver. “Felicity Locke,” she says gently, patiently.

Harry doesn’t reply, just stands up and bulls past her, sweeps down the aisle between cubicles and barges into Ron’s.

“Is this what my life is like now?” he demands.

Ron lets his chair drop back down from where he’d been balancing it on the back legs. “Bad day?” he asks.

“Bad day?” Harry echoes. “ _Bad_ —? How the fuck would I even know?! I don’t _remember_ —”

“All right,” Ron says, standing, and Harry can hear that same patient, gentle, pitying tone in his voice that he heard in Felicity’s. He loops an arm over Harry’s shoulders, ushering him out of the cubicle down the corridor. “Why don’t we take a break, get a cuppa?”

A few Aurors lean out of doorways, a few more pop their heads over the tops of their cubicles like meerkats, and Harry can feel his cheeks go hot with frustration and shame. He may not be the Boy Who Lived anymore, but apparently he’s still a spectacle.

“I hate this,” he says, low and tight.

“I know,” Ron says, and his arm around Harry’s shoulders squeezes in an almost-hug for a moment, and Harry almost relaxes, but how can he when he can’t even trust his own mind?

Skipping time, lost memories, and _Malfoy_ —

Harry’s throat goes tight at the thought of Malfoy, and between one blink and the next he’s suddenly standing in the tiny Auror break room with a spoon in his hand, a soggy tea bag balanced on it.

“All right,” Ron sighs, folding his arms over his chest. “What is it this time?”

“A witch. She wanted to see if I had a file for her, and I…” Harry trails off. Saying it out loud makes him feel suddenly childish, causing a fuss and storming off like a child throwing a temper tantrum. He slides his fingers of his free hand up beneath his glasses to rub at his eyes. “Fuck.”

“Right,” Ron says, nodding. “Let me guess. She was being nice to you.”

“Well, yeah. But it was the way she was being nice. Like she felt sorry for me,” Harry says, his frustration rising again. “Like I’m so helpless…”

“You’re not helpless,” Ron tells him. “You’re doing fine. You just need a bit of reminding from time to time. Nobody blames you for it. We all understand.”

They all _understand_ , right. Harry understands too. He’s the Boy Who Lived. Can’t send him packing just because his memory’s gone to shit. Oh no, they’ve got to keep him around, just give him a bit of _reminding_ to keep him on task.

“We know you’re an Auror,” Ron continues. “We know what this job means to you, and you’ll be back in the field soon enough. There’s no shame in accepting a bit of help until then.”

“Is that why I’ve still got a job here at all even though clearly I’m completely useless?” Harry demands, his anger boiling over. “This job is all I’m good for, so better to let me do it badly than to send me packing? They feel _sorry_ for me?”

“Harry,” Ron says, closing his eyes for a moment and rubbing at his temples. “We have this conversation about twice a week. For the last year we’ve been having this conversation twice a week, _at least_.” 

“Well excuse the fuck out of me for being spell-damaged.” Harry flings his teaspoon into the sink with a clatter that instantly makes him feel childish. “I’m going home.”

It’s a testament to how thin Harry’s worn Ron’s patience that Ron doesn’t even try to stop him, not even a token calling of Harry’s name after him as he walks away.

 _Well, fine_ , Harry thinks uncharitably, scowling to himself. _Fuck him. Fuck them all_.

Mercifully there’s not a line for the lifts. A minor miracle, and Harry is more than grateful as he steps into the lift and jabs the button that will take him down to the Atrium. He’s not in the mood to deal with anyone else. Not in the mood to put up with curious stares or pitying smiles or—

“ _Arresto_!” 

The grate freezes partway shut, and a moment later Malfoy shoves himself through the gap.

“You’re dead,” Harry says. This time his voice doesn’t shake.

Malfoy’s still got that wild-eyed look about him, and he’s still wet from the rain, still tracking muddy footprints across the floor. Ghosts can’t track mud.

Between one blink and the next, Malfoy is suddenly dry. The muddy footprints on the floor crumble into dirt.

What the _fuck_.

Malfoy’s got his wand clenched in his hand, and he reaches out with his other and clamps his fingers tightly around Harry’s wrist. Harry’s hand twitches toward his wand holster, and he barely keeps himself from drawing. This is Malfoy. His grip on Harry’s wrist is warm and solid and _real_. Malfoy isn’t dead. Ron lied. Why the fuck would Ron lie?

“Dear Merlin, I hope that someday you’ll be able to forgive me for this,” Malfoy says, yanking Harry’s hand up.

“What? Forgive you for what?” Harry tries to tug free, but Malfoy’s grip is strong, desperate. That, even more than the wild look in Malfoy’s eyes, sends a shiver of real fear skittering up Harry’s spine. “Malfoy, what—”

“ _Diffindo_ ,” Malfoy barks, slashing his wand at Harry’s palm.

“Ow, _fuck_ ,” Harry yelps, trying to pull his hand away, but Malfoy’s grip on him tightens to the point of bruising.

“ _Diffindo_ ,” Malfoy casts again, and his grip on Harry’s wrist goes slick with blood. His wand clatters to the floor of the lift and he wrenches Harry’s hand around until their bloody palms are pressed against each other. He’s squeezing Harry’s hand so hard it makes the bones ache, and their blood drips onto the floor of the lift.

Something cold and terrified washes through Harry. Because he’s never seen Blood Magic performed, only ever witnessed the gruesome aftermath when it goes wrong. Clasping Harry’s hand tightly in both of his, Malfoy fires off a rapid stream of Latin that Harry’s horrified brain can’t keep up with. He catches the words _animus_ and _aeternum_ and then it’s like getting struck in the face with a sledgehammer except that feeling explodes outward from the back of his brain.

There’s a sudden striking moment of perfect clarity where every ounce of his awareness is tethered to Malfoy’s, like two mirrors reflecting into each other over and over and back and forth, stretching out endlessly into eternity, and then Harry’s Dark magic sensitivity goes fucking haywire.

That first step onto the mansion porch had been as bad as Harry could possibly have imagined, and this is so much worse. His head is filled with a high-pitched roaring that goes on and on, and his vision blanks out with swirling purple static. He’s fallen to his hands and knees, only becoming aware that he’s no longer upright because his reeling brain has decided to latch onto how the floor of the lift is dusty and gritty against his hands. His stomach heaves and he coughs, coughs, retches—

* * *

—and nothing comes up. His mouth is flooding with saliva, and he spits into the toilet as Malfoy rubs his back and murmurs inanely, “It’s all right, it’s all right.”

“Gah,” says Harry, and spits again. His stomach roils and heaves, and Harry coughs, then groans feebly.

“All right, now?” Malfoy asks. “Feeling any better?”

Harry squints miserably and looks around. He’s in a white marble bathroom he’s never seen before in his life.

“No,” he moans. “What the fuck just—”

* * *

They’re in a pub.

* * *

They’re on a train.

* * *

They’re sitting down to dinner in Grimmauld Place—

* * *

—in Malfoy Manor—

* * *

—in a different pub, surrounded by their friends—

* * *

—alone—

* * *

“Hold on,” Malfoy says as they stand in the middle of the back garden at Grimmauld Place—

* * *

—the middle of the Atrium at the Ministry—

* * *

—a bustling Diagon Alley, and Malfoy’s hand tightens around Harry’s. “It’s trying to work out what to do with us.”

* * *

They’re in a library—

* * *

—at a New Year’s party at someone’s flat, and Harry manages to croak out, “Who is?” but Malfoy can’t hear him over all the people around them screaming, “ _Eight! Seven! Six!_ ” and the room is so small and crowded that Harry can’t breathe—

* * *

—the Great Hall at Hogwarts, empty and echoing cavernous around them, and Harry drags in a great shuddering breath—

* * *

—and smells tobacco, they’re dancing together at the Ministry Christmas party, and Malfoy pulls Harry in closer, curls one hand around the back of Harry’s head to press Harry’s face into his shoulder.

“Hold on,” he says, and Harry shuts his eyes, and holds on tight, and breathes.

Harry doesn’t know where else they end up but he can feel them rattling around, popping from one place to another with no rhyme or reason and his head is spinning, he feels sick, but Malfoy is warm and steady against him, a rock in a storm, and Harry clings to that with all his might.

He’s not alone. He has Malfoy. Malfoy is here and he’s not alone, not alone, not alone.

* * *

There’s the sensation of jolting to a stop, even though Harry’s not moving. He’s in bed with Malfoy. They’re both naked, save for a sheet draped carelessly over their hips. Harry’s on his side, one leg slotted between Malfoy’s, one arm flung over Malfoy’s waist, his cheek resting on Malfoy’s bicep. He can feel Malfoy breathing softly into his hair.

He’s been in this exact position often enough over the couple of years that he’d spent with Malfoy that Harry knows all of this without looking. Harry gives himself three slow, deep, steady breaths to lie here before he opens his eyes. They’re in Harry’s bedroom in Grimmauld Place. Hazy sunshine slants through the window. Either it’s very early or very overcast. He’d have to roll over to look at the clock.

He recognises this immediately. It’s exactly like the fantasy morning he’s relived in his mind dozens upon dozens of times since the chocolate cake incident. Waking up with Malfoy in his arms, in his bed, in his life.

Beside him, Malfoy is quiet, still sleeping

Cautiously, Harry starts to push himself up. “You can’t be ready for another round already,” Malfoy murmurs without opening his eyes. Not asleep, then.

“I…” Harry begins, confused. Because he doesn’t think they’ve just had sex. They’ve only just woken up together. Haven’t they? He’s had this daydream a zillion times, he’s sure they’ve just woken up.

“Here, let me just clean us up—” Malfoy says, rolling half-away and reaching for his wand where he left it on the bedside table. He aims it at Harry and—

“ _Legilimens_.”

Malfoy doesn’t speak aloud, but the word’s left echoing in Harry’s head.

They’re still in the same room, but it’s different, somehow. Softer, not quite real. Without either of them moving, they’re suddenly sitting up, and both dressed in pyjamas. Harry’s wearing threadbare flannel bottoms and an old Holyhead Harpies tee-shirt he stole from Ginny. Malfoy’s wearing soft grey and white plaid. Harry opens his mouth to ask _what the fuck_ but Malfoy beats him to it.

“I’m sorry to do that to you,” Malfoy says.

“To do _what_ to me? The Legilimency or the—?” Harry demands. He still doesn’t quite know what it was, but his body is still buzzing with the last of that awful magic, the way he’d been kicked from one place to another rapidfire like thumbing the pages of a flipbook where every page had a completely different picture on it. He has no idea what’s happening to him, but he’s terrified. For the first time in years, he’s properly terrified.

“Both,” Malfoy says quietly. He looks wretched, guilty and ashamed and a little desperate. “But mostly the soulbond. I’m so sorry. But it was the only way I could think of to tether myself to you. I don’t think either of us will be able to break free on our own, and it was the only thing I could think to do.”

“Soulbond,” Harry repeats. “What—”

“That’s not important, not right now. I know what we’re dealing with,” Malfoy says, his voice low and urgent. “No, shut up, let me finish.”

Harry snaps his mouth shut. There’s something in Malfoy’s tone that says that Harry really needs to listen to him right now.

“It’s not a poltergeist or a haunting, and I was wrong. I was so wrong. It’s not curses like I thought. It’s a Family Home. I’m sorry, Harry, I ought to have recognised it straight off but I’ve never seen one, didn’t think they actually existed since the Sacred Twenty-Eight are the only ones old enough and powerful enough to create one, and we’re all so careful and… Fuck, I can never think straight around you. The possibility of a Family Home never even crossed my mind.”

“Malfoy,” Harry says. “Nothing about you is straight.”

It’s a terrible joke, and utterly inappropriate considering everything else that’s going on, but it seems to startle Malfoy out of whatever spiral of guilt he’d been slipping into.

He gives a surprised little laugh, then sobers quickly. “Still, I ought to have known. I ought to have put it together.”

“Apologise later,” Harry tells him. “What the fuck is a Family Home?”

“Bad,” Malfoy says. “It’s very, very bad.” He pauses, and Harry can see him gathering his thoughts, considering his words. He takes a breath and continues, “We wizards are constantly radiating magic. Not much, not enough for us to notice. But it’s like how our bodies are constantly radiating warmth, constantly breathing out damp. We can’t help it, and that magic has to go somewhere.”

“Where does it go?”

“If we’re out in the world, it disperses.” Malfoy’s elegant hand lifts and curls in a vague wave. “Gone. But places where we spend a lot of time, particularly places where a number of people with very similar magical signatures spend lots of time, well, that magic starts to get absorbed. And if a wizarding family lives in the same home for generations, over time that home can become magical in and of itself.”

Harry frowns, working through that. “Wait. Like, the building becomes sentient?”

“Given enough time, yes,” Malfoy says. “Only the very, very oldest homes, who have belonged to the very oldest and most powerful families who have the very purest blood. And _don’t_ look at me like that, it’s to do with the magic. Muggle-borns bring in fresh magic, and that changes things up. It’s enough to keep even the most magical of places from gaining sentience, like Hogwarts. Family Homes are mostly a problem for pure-bloods because when the same twenty-eight families keep intermarrying in pursuit of purity, over the generations it focuses and refines their magic. Keeps it homogenous. Which is why we are very careful to take steps to keep our homes from gaining sentience, either by rotating through a number of estates on a fixed schedule, or by periodically acquiring a new property as the family’s primary residence. It’s why the Blacks moved into Grimmauld Place just a couple of generations ago.”

“Is Malfoy Manor one of these Family Homes?” Harry hates the way Malfoy Manor feels, but he’s always attributed it to lingering trauma from the war, and mostly just tries his best not to think about it.

Malfoy shakes his head. “No, though it is getting close. But we’re one of the families who keeps to a schedule. I’m the last one who will live in the Manor until it comes up again in the rotation in, I believe, another 400 years. Our manor in Essex is up next, and my third cousin is currently living there with his family. His children will likely be the ones to inherit, after I’m gone.”

“So the mansion is sentient?”

“Not quite, I don’t think. It’s close, but not quite.” The walls shudder, and a strip of wallpaper sags loose, peeling down to the floor. The light tilts, like a cloud passing over the sun.

Harry jumps up, one foot getting tangled in the sheets and nearly sending him sprawling. He wrenches it free. “Malfoy?”

Malfoy’s clenching his teeth. “It’s difficult to hold. We’re in a room in your mind, in a world that exists in my mind. We’ve got to talk fast.”

“Shit. All right. So what does the house want with us?”

“To live,” Malfoy says. “With its family gone, there’s no more magic to feed it. At the end of the day, it’s still just a house. It can’t make its own magic, and it’s begun to fade. It’s got to find magic somewhere else.”

“Us,” Harry says, and Malfoy nods. “So, what, it’s eating us?”

“Eating our magic,” Malfoy says, then shrugs. “Which we can’t survive without. So I suppose it’s the same thing, so far as we’re concerned.”

“And the Muggles?” The floor shudders and ripples beneath Harry’s feet, and he clambers back on the bed, crawling across it to Malfoy’s side.

“It’s after their souls. Every single life contains a little spark of magic. It’d be crumbs, as far as the house is concerned. But by now it’s desperate.”

“And then we walked in looking like a ten-course buffet,” Harry says. “Wonderful.”

A sharp crack. A starburst fracture has appeared in the window. The glass creaks ominously, echoing like the ice of the lake at Hogwarts when someone’s stupid enough to venture out too far on it when it freezes in the depths of winter.

“Except it didn’t realise what we were until I cast that _Lumos_ ,” Harry said. “I’m so sorry, you told me not to and I completely—”

There’s a snap and tickling crackle from above, and plaster dust rains down from the crumbling ceiling. Harry breaks off his apology, coughing.

“Not the time, Potter,” Malfoy says sharply. “We’ve got more pressing issues.”

“Right,” Harry says. “So how do we get out of here?”

“Force cracks in it. Its goal is to keep us quiet, complacent. Content. It’s doing that by pushing us into happy memories, lulling us with daydreams and wishes come true. It’s trying to give us a world that’s better than the reality waiting for us back outside. Something we won’t want to leave.”

“Something we won’t want to leave?” Harry echoes in disbelief. “It told me you were dead!”

“Because it needed to keep us separated.”

“It also said I’m not an Auror anymore. It’s got me riding a bloody desk! It’s got Ron insisting I’m curse-damaged and I can’t be an Auror anymore, and—”

“And when did that happen?” Malfoy asks. “When did it tell you that you were curse-damaged? After you started noticing the inconsistencies? You weren’t going along with it so it gave you an explanation you’d believe. If you hadn’t questioned, if I hadn’t kept breaking into the world it made for you and disrupting—

“You were breaking in? How?”

“Legilimency,” Malfoy said. “I’ve been in your mind often enough to know how to find my way back. But I couldn’t get all the way inside your mental shields, I couldn’t hold on so it kept booting me out. That’s why I cast the bond, to get me all the way in past your shields, to tie us together. We’ll need both of us to get out of this.”

“And how do we—”

“I’m working on it. Have you ever seen a stonemason cutting stone by hand?”

Harry shakes his head, and Malfoy pushes an image into his mind of a man working before an enormous stone. He’s got a line of metal spikes driven into it in a straight vertical line, and he’s swinging a hammer, striking each of them in turn. On one swing that looks no different than any of the ones before it, the rock splits neatly in two, half of it falling away. 

“I’m lining it up, driving the spikes into place. When I give you the signal, I’m going to need you to be my hammer.”

Harry wants to ask how he’ll know when, but he trusts Malfoy. “Okay,” he says.

“In the meantime I need you to keep it busy, so I can keep working on the spell to break us out.”

Harry flinches as the floor cracks. The corner of the bedroom has begun to cave in, the floorboards splintering and crumbling and falling away into a deep, dark hole. “How do I do that?”

“Make it keep adjusting for you. Just like you have been.”

That doesn’t make it any clearer, and Harry wrestles down his frustration. Snapping at Malfoy right now won’t help either of them. “All right, and _how do I do that_?”

“Anything that’s not right. Focus on inconsistencies. Do exactly what you’ve been doing. Make it keep scrambling to feed you explanations that make sense. Make it keep adjusting the world around you. You can’t let it settle us, Harry, if it settles around us, we’re through.”

“Oh god, no pressure or anything, right?”

The walls around them groan, buckling, and Harry grabs for Malfoy, holds on tight.

“I can’t—hold—” Malfoy’s breath is coming in quick pants. “Remember. Not a word, you can’t let it know—”

The room shatters and Harry’s back in bed with Malfoy, his cheek resting against Malfoy’s naked chest, the steady thump of Malfoy’s heart in his ear. He keeps his eyes shut, draws deep, fortifying breaths through his mouth and tries to make sense of what the fuck just happened. That evening at Ron’s plays through his mind again and for a moment Harry doubts everything he just saw and heard.

Curse damage could explain all of this. And what’s that Muggle saying about hoofbeats? Sure, it could be a zebra, but Harry’s whole life has been an enormous fucking herd of zebras up until now. Isn’t he due for some horses? Right now, this with Malfoy… this is everything he’s ever wanted. Isn’t Harry due for that, after everything he’s been through? It’s wonderfully ordinary, and Harry could be so, so happy here.

Malfoy’s hand squeezes his fingers tight, and his words echo in Harry’s mind: _if it settles around us, we’re through._

* * *

They don’t have sex—a big departure from how Harry’s always imagined a morning like this might go—but they do make out lazily for a while, and it gives Harry some time to think.

Malfoy had told him to keep the house distracted, force it to keep adjusting. But there’s nothing here that Harry wants to adjust. Everything here is perfect.

Other people. He needs other people around. That’s where things had seemed wrong before, when other people were around. He needs Ron and Hermione.

“So, what did you feel like doing today?” he asks a bit stiffly as they both move about the room, gathering clothes and getting dressed for the day. He feels a bit stupid to be pretending like this, like he’s an actor without a script. 

Malfoy shrugs as he tugs the hem of the jumper he’s just pulled over his head down into place, and then finger-combs his hair. As always, Harry’s more than a little jealous of the way it falls obediently into place with only a few seconds of attention.

“I thought we might go out,” Harry continues, turning to the bureau in search of socks. His are in a jumbled heap on the left side of the drawer; Malfoy’s are matched up and each neat bundle is tucked into a tidy row. Harry grabs two socks from his side—the advantage of plain white socks is that they all match—and then an aqua-and-navy striped pair from Malfoy’s and tosses it across the room to him.

“I could be amenable to that,” Malfoy says, catching his socks neatly. “Breakfast?”

“I was thinking we might pop by Ron and Hermione’s,” Harry says. “If you don’t mind?”

“I’d never begrudge you spending time with your friends,” Malfoy says, which isn’t really an answer, but it's the best Harry's likely to get. He and Ron get along all right, these days. Harry knows it’s Hermione that’s holding him up.

Malfoy drags the sheets and blankets up over the bed, sweeping his hands briskly over them to smooth out the wrinkles. Harry startles. He could have sworn he just felt a sharp little tug at his magic, but it was so fast, there and then gone, that he’s left wondering whether he imagined it all together.

“All right, shall we?” Malfoy asks, turning away from the bed. He offers Harry his arm. “We can Side-Along from here.”

“You know where Ron and Hermione live?” Harry asks, surprised, as he loops his arm through Malfoy’s.

“They’re your best friends,” Malfoy says, and there’s an almost imperceptible pause before he adds, “What sort of a boyfriend would I be if I didn’t?”

Hearing Malfoy call him his _boyfriend_ strikes Harry momentarily speechless, and then the sucking twist of Apparition steals whatever he might’ve said next.

“Sorry,” Malfoy murmurs to him when they land.

“What?” Harry asks, clinging to Malfoy until his balance decides to join him again. “What for?”

“For not warning you,” Malfoy says, and there's another barely-there pause. “Before we Apparated?”

“Oh. Right, yes.” Harry swallows. He wishes he could get away with casting Legilimency at Malfoy just so he can… explain himself? Make excuses? But he doesn’t dare. He’s tempted to apologise to Malfoy, but doesn’t have the pretense of Apparition to do so. He can feel himself blushing, his cheeks going warm, and he has to look away. _Boyfriends_. How painfully, pathetically obvious is he that Malfoy could put together Harry’s deepest desire just from one morning waking up together?

Instead, he turns to the door and knocks firmly.

A moment later, Hermione swings it open and ushers them in before hugging Harry.

“So good to see you,” she murmurs. “Joining us for breakfast? We’ve got plenty.”

“Of course, thanks for having us,” Harry says.

Then, to Harry’s shock, Hermione turns to Malfoy and hugs him too. “Draco,” she says warmly. “Come on in, Ron’s just finishing up in the kitchen. Omelets all right with everyone?”

And oh, Harry doesn’t want to ruin this. Harry really _really_ doesn’t want to ruin this. Because Hermione’s smiling warmly at Malfoy, and Malfoy, while clearly surprised, has an expression of heartbreaking realisation blooming over his face. In Harry’s fantasy world, Hermione’s forgiven him.

“Hey Malfoy,” Harry says quickly, desperately wishing that he and Malfoy hadn’t Apparated here so they’d have the excuse of coats. Just like that, they’re wearing them. Harry doesn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, just strips out of his jacket as fast as he can. “Would you mind going to hang this up for me?”

If he’s got to do this, he hopes that at least he can spare Malfoy from having to stand right here as he does.

Malfoy takes his jacket and turns to the little coat closet in the entryway while Harry drags Hermione to the other side of the living room.

He knows that the person in front of him isn’t really Hermione. It’s just a projection of Hermione cobbled together from details lifted right out of Harry’s own mind. He still doesn’t know how exactly it works. He still had his mental shields up when he went to sleep, when the house put him to sleep and took over his mind. He doesn’t know how it’s lifting details of his life out of his brain, how it’s adjusting around details he’s noticed but hasn’t said out loud. He doesn’t know how, if it’s lifting details straight out of his mind to create the perfect world to lure Harry into staying here forever, it’s managing to get so much wrong. He didn’t think to ask, and Malfoy didn’t exactly have time to explain.

So everything he’s saying to her, he’s saying to a projection of his own mind. That doesn’t make it any easier, though; Malfoy is still very real—at least, Harry's pretty sure that he's real, and he can't bring himself to think about what it means if he isn't—and there’s no way he’s not going to hear every word of this.

“What the fuck,” he says. “You’re hugging him?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Hermione looks plainly baffled. “He’s your boyfriend.”

“And, so, what? Now you’re best friends with him? Just like that?”

“People change, Harry,” Hermione says, and now she’s beginning to look cross. “Obviously you think so, or you wouldn’t be in a relationship with him.”

“You said,” Harry tells her, and the back of his neck is prickling with how badly he wants to turn around and look at Malfoy. Wants to give him a look, anything to reassure him that Harry’s sorry for saying all of this. He wants to tell Malfoy that he doesn’t really mean it, even though every word of it is true. “You told me that you’d never forgive him. Ever. You were tortured on the floor of his drawing room while he looked on and did nothing. You could have died, and he’d have just watched it happen.”

“Harry…”

“How many times has he called you Mudblood?” Harry asks, and then steels himself before asking, “Has he ever even apologised for it?” because while he knows that Malfoy had apologised in general to Hermione after the war, he doesn’t know whether he’d apologised for that in particular. He just knows that it’s one of the things Hermione’s still holding against him.

He can’t stand it anymore. Harry glances over his shoulder. Across the room, Malfoy is staring down at the floor. He looks like he’d rather be anywhere else.

Between one blink and the next, they’re standing in the kitchen. Ron’s at the cooker, poking a spatula at a cast iron pan full of sizzling potatoes.

“Harry, Malfoy!” he says, grinning. “Glad you could stop by. We’ve got enough here to feed a Quidditch team.”

“You told me Malfoy was dead,” Harry says.

“I never said that,” Ron says.

“You did,” Harry insists. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Malfoy watching them. “We were standing right here in your kitchen, and you told me that he was dead.”

“The damage from the curse—” Ron begins.

“—doesn’t explain why you’re lying to me,” Harry cuts in. He’s warming to it, now. Letting loose all his fear and anger and desperation for this to fucking be _over_. The not-Ron in front of him is one hell of a convenient target. “You’re my best friend, Ron. Why are you lying to me? Why would you tell me Malfoy’s dead?”

“Harry, calm down…” 

“No, I won’t,” he says. His voice is climbing, not quite a shout but rapidly approaching. “Not until you tell me why the fuck you’d lie to me about something so important!”

“Because—” Ron says, and then Harry slams into the ground.

He’s outside, on his back. Quidditch hoops tower above him.

“What…?” He rolls over and tries to push himself up.

“All right there, Harry?” Ginny asks, dismounting her broomstick and hurrying over to him. “That was a nasty fall you took. Didn’t hit your head, did you?”

“Malfoy?” he calls, looking wildly around. He scrambles to his feet, heart racing faster than it had when he hit the ground. Malfoy had said that they were tied together, so where the fuck has he gone?

“Won again, that bastard,” Ginny says, shielding her eyes with one hand as she squints up into the sky.

“Again?” Harry echoes following her gaze up into the sky and nearly sagging with relief. Malfoy’s on a broomstick, guiding it rapidly closer. “He’s only ever beat me once.”

Ginny looks down at him, grinning a little. “Yeah, keep telling yourself that. He beats you about half the time, these days. Knows you too well, if you ask me.”

“No,” Harry insists. “It was just the once—”

“All right, there, Harry?” Malfoy asks as he touches down. He flashes the Snitch at Harry, and even though it glints brightly in the sunshine, it doesn’t hold a candle to the brightness of Malfoy’s smile.

For a second, Harry hesitates. It’s like last Saturday all over again. Malfoy has won, and Harry will have no problem dragging him off for a celebratory blowjob in the showers. It’ll be brilliant, Harry knows, because it already was when it happened before. He’s so tempted to let this play out, but he has to force those cracks for Malfoy. He has to ruin this perfect moment.

“No,” Harry says, sitting up. He focuses himself, and says with every ounce of conviction he can muster, “You’ve only ever beat me once, and it took both Bludgers. You didn’t beat me today.”

A flicker of movement tickles against his palm. He looks down. He’s holding a Snitch. He looks back up again. So is Malfoy.

“That’s not possible,” Harry says aloud, looking back and forth. “We didn’t have a second Snitch.”

“Let me see that,” Malfoy says, reaching for the Snitch Harry’s holding. His hands are suddenly empty.

“Wait…” Harry says, looking around. He turns to Ginny. “Did you see—”

“Harry,” Malfoy says again, still reaching, and there’s something below the surface of his voice, something low and urgent that holds him up.

Malfoy’s hand closes around the Snitch, Harry’s fingers caught between them. There’s a little spark, almost like static electricity, and Harry jolts. It’s the same thing Harry felt this morning in his—their?—bedroom. Malfoy’s grip on him tightens, but before he can say anything else, Ginny interrupts.

“See what?” she asks. And when he doesn’t respond, “Harry, _what_?”

“I could have sworn Malfoy was holding a Snitch too,” Harry says.

Ginny rolls her eyes, laughing. “Still accusing him of cheating?”

“Mm, I let you win,” Malfoy says, the sly curl of a smile playing through his voice even as he keeps his expression perfectly neutral. 

Harry snorts. “Yeah, all right. Keep telling yourself that.”

“I wasn’t talking about Quidditch,” Malfoy says, leaning in to murmur into Harry’s ear. “Let’s go home and celebrate your victory properly. Then we’ll see who’s really won.”

Harry has a brief fantasy of shower sex, slippery skin and the way Malfoy’s eyelashes get dark when they’re wet, but it fades almost immediately, overwhelmed by how Malfoy had said _home_.

Then they’re in Grimmauld Place, surrounded by boxes. He looks down into the nearest one and sees a stack of musty old books. _Moste Cursed Magicks_ is embossed on the cover of the top one in gold leaf that’s been mostly rubbed off with age. Crammed into the box alongside the stack of books is the stupid stuffed dragon Harry had given Malfoy for his birthday last year. 

Harry doesn’t even have to search for a reason, this is so obviously wrong. When Harry fantasises about them living their lives together, it’s always here in his home, but Grimmauld Place is little more than a convenient backdrop. In reality, he knows that Malfoy would never want to live here, for the same reason that he didn’t want to live in the Manor. Part of making amends for his past was distancing himself from it. Malfoy would never ever live in the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black.

Harry’s only been living here because, frankly, at this point he’s too lazy to move. He’d only ever moved in here in the first place because finding another place to live had been more than his traumatised teenaged self had been capable of dealing with, and then he’d been too busy, and then by the time his life had calmed down again, he’d been living here long enough that he didn’t really think about it anymore. At least, not until he'd started up this thing with Malfoy, and now at this point he’s holding off because a small, secret part of himself is hoping the next place Harry lives is one they’ll pick out together. Lately Malfoy’s been making noises about how his current flat is too small and how it’s nice to have someone else around. Harry’s still working up the nerve to suggest that they be roommates.

“What the fuck,” he says out loud.

Malfoy pauses from where he’s holding an old Hogwarts jumper over an open box. “What?”

The coloured strips decorating the cuffs and hem of the jumper have changed from silver and green, to red and gold. Malfoy blinks, then looks down into the box and blinks again. Around the room, the shelves have suddenly emptied, the coffee table cleared of clutter. Harry’s telly is wrapped securely in an old quilt. In the box by Harry, the books and dragon are gone, replaced by that hideously ugly ceramic statue of a cat in a Victorian gown that Ginny had given him as a housewarming gift, cushioned in a colourful knitted afghan. Harry tucks the afghan more securely around the statue so it doesn’t break.

Malfoy’s not moving in; Harry’s moving out.

Slowly, Malfoy folds the jumper he’s holding and places it in the box. “Do you think we ought to take the tapestry?” he asks, already striding out of the room.

Harry hurries after him as he heads to the Black family tapestry. “I… I guess?” Harry says. “I don’t know where we’d put it…”

“We’ll find a place,” Malfoy murmurs, studying it. He reaches out and touches his mum’s name, then traces back the line to the burnt-out spot where Sirius used to be, and touches that too.

As his fingertip makes contact with the frayed edges of the hole, there’s a little spark of magic. Harry doesn’t see it, or hear it, but somehow he _knows_ that Malfoy just—

He clamps down tight on that train of thought. _I’ll line it up_ , he remembers Malfoy saying. Harry looks away, picking out Charlus Potter. “We’ll have to find a box to pack it up in,” he says, doing his best to imagine where on earth they would even put this enormous bloody thing in their new flat. The living room? The dining room? God forbid, the bedroom? “You don’t want to take the stuffed house-elf heads too, do you?” They’re still packed away in the attic, he’s pretty sure. It’d always felt too disrespectful to chuck them out.

Malfoy goggles at him. “The _what_?”

The look on his face is priceless and Harry bursts out laughing. “Or maybe the umbrella stand?”

“We are _not_ taking that awful thing,” Malfoy says firmly, which is a shame because Harry’s grown rather fond of it over the years. “I will burn it before I let it into our new flat, I swear to Merlin.”

“But Malfoy,” Harry says, his voice trembling as he struggles to hold back his laughter. “It’s a Black family heirloom.”

“You’re an arsehole,” Malfoy says, but he’s starting to smile a little.

This moment is so perfect. It’s everything Harry ever wanted. He knows he’s got a job to do, but he can’t help taking a moment to enjoy this, standing on the cusp of fully merging his life with Malfoy’s. Their books mixed together on the enormous set of shelves Malfoy keeps in his living room. That bright afghan Molly knitted for Harry tossed carelessly over the back of Malfoy’s tufted leather sofa. Their favourite mugs sitting on the counter by the kettle, a box of Muggle tea bags tucked into the cabinet beside the tin of fancy loose leaf stuff Malfoy prefers. 

Harry wants it. He wants it so badly that it hurts.

He takes one more moment to feel that pain, that vicious longing. Then he packs it all up tight and puts it away.

 _All right_ , he thinks. _Back to it_.

* * *

They skip through a dozen different daydream scenarios: Sunday dinner at the Burrow, attending a Quidditch game at Hogwarts as Slytherin and Gryffindor battle it out for the Cup, an aimless stroll through Diagon Alley on a balmy summer afternoon, breakfast together in a bustling café, lounging on the sofa together after a long day, a Saturday night out at the pub with their friends. Sometimes Harry feels that little tug, that little spark of magic as Malfoy places another spike, and sometimes he doesn’t.

It isn’t until they’re on a quiet ramble through the Manor’s gardens, the evening air heavy with the smell of roses in full bloom, when Harry puts it together. Malfoy’s only casting around people or places or things that are significant to them. Ron and Hermione, Hogwarts, the Burrow, the Manor, the pub, the Black Family Tapestry, a Snitch, Grimmauld Place, Quidditch with their friends, the Weasleys.

Now they’re at the Ministry. The Atrium’s been decked out for the holidays. Three enormous Christmas trees block off the wand check stations that lead deeper into the Ministry, and the water in the fountain in the centre has been tinted a festive shade of red that looks disturbingly like blood. The ceiling has been enchanted to look like the night sky and glittering flakes of snow drift down, disappearing before they reach the heads of all the people crowded beneath.

Harry’s dressed in his go-to formal robes, a plain black set that are long enough that he can get away with wearing his trainers under them instead of the shiny formal boots that pinch his toes no matter how many Cushioning Charms he layers into them. Malfoy, meanwhile, is wearing a set of slate grey robes that match his eyes perfectly. They’ve got a long row of tiny jet buttons up the front and halfway up each forearm, and Harry can’t wait to undo them one at a time later tonight.

 _Focus_ , Harry tells himself. What here can he change?

That godawful fountain, for one. Harry focuses and as he watches, it changes from bloody red to sparkly green.

“Ready to be my hammer?” Malfoy asks casually, and Harry’s so intent on looking around for other things to change that it takes a moment for him to realise what that means.

“Ready,” he nods, and takes the hand that Malfoy nudges against Harry’s fingers.

“Hold on. This is going to hurt, and it’ll hurt worse if you fight it,” Malfoy warns, and there’s no time to brace himself before Malfoy whips his wand at Harry and snaps, “ _Legilimens_!”

It’s a bit like being Side-Alonged, the way that Malfoy grabs his mind, and _pulls_.

The world explodes into brightly roaring flames. A fiery Chimaera twists by, biting at him, and crashes back down in an explosion of swirling sparks, and a dragon blasts upward to take its place. 

Harry’s broomstick shudders—

* * *

—and Hedwig is dropping down, down, a bright spot in the darkness, and then she’s gone—

* * *

—and he hits the ground of the Hogwarts pitch hard, and his arm snaps—

* * *

—and he hits the ground of a pitch he’s never seen before hard, and his leg snaps—

* * *

—and the sharp snap is the staccato rap of a banged gavel and Harry’s in a cavernous courtroom looking up at the Wizengamot and they’re laying out his charges—

* * *

—underage magic—

* * *

—Death Eater, murderer—

* * *

—and he doesn’t _want_ to kill anyone, he wants to go home, but no, not home, not like it is now, he wants to go back to _before_ , and then he’s ripped open in a lightning bolt of white-hot agony and he’s bleeding out on a bathroom floor—

* * *

—and Harry didn’t _mean_ to do it, but he did, and oh god there’s so much blood—

* * *

They’ve come to a stop. Harry’s shaking, a fine series of tremors running through him and he can’t stop. He wraps his arms around himself and tries to force himself still. It’s dark here, so dark. Harry can’t see a thing.

“ _Lumos_ ,” Malfoy says, and his wand flares bright.

They’re in Harry’s cupboard under the stairs. Harry knows objectively that it’d be a tight squeeze for two grown men to fit in here, but from this deep inside Harry’s memory it feels larger than it ought to, like he’s as small as a child again. It’s exactly the same, from the thin, lumpy pallet the Dursleys had crammed in here for him to sleep on, to the small stack of clothes folded into clumsy little squares and stacked as neatly as a small boy could manage, to the handful of broken toys he’d quietly rescued from the bin and stashed away in the deepest corner of his cupboard.

“I think this is far enough. We’ll have to be quick, it’ll find us again soon.” Malfoy shuffles forward on his knees, wand weaving through the air.

“Why,” Harry says, and he hates the way his voice comes out, too thin, as if he’s on the verge of tears even though he’s not. He can’t cry. They hate it when he cries. “Why would you bring me— _why_.”

“I’m sorry,” Malfoy says, his wand slowing for a fraction of a second before he resumes weaving magic. “But it knows all our good memories, it’s been mining them to make dreams to keep us in. It’ll take it some time to track us through our bad ones. But that’s fine, I only need—” He breaks off in English, switches to Latin and rambles off a long string of words. A wandless _Diffindo_ lays open a deep gash in his palm and he slaps his bloody hand against the door.

Light flares bright from the hallway outside, seeping in through the gaps around and below the door, pouring in through the keyhole. Harry squints, one hand coming up to shield his eyes.

“Open it,” Malfoy says, hauling Harry forward. “Open the door.”

“What?” Harry asks, confused, but he’s already reaching for the knob.

The door doesn’t open. Old panic begins to rise up in him. He’s locked in. He’s been bad again and they’d locked him in and he’s had nothing to eat. His stomach growls, and a sharp pain stabs through his lower belly. He needs the toilet, they haven’t let him out in so long, and he’s terrified of making a mess. That’ll only make them angrier, only make them keep him locked in here longer.

“ _Harry_ ,” Malfoy’s voice says as if from very far away. “Open the door. Come on, Harry, open the door.”

“I can’t,” Harry says, rattling the knob. It doesn’t turn. He pushes on the door. It doesn’t budge. He’s locked in.

Malfoy’s hand closes around Harry’s. “You can,” he says simply. “You can. You’re the bloody Chosen One, aren’t you? If Voldemort couldn’t off you, are you really going to let some mouldy old house finish the job?”

It’s like a switch flipping. At once, the helplessness of his childhood fades away like a dream in the morning sun. The cupboard under the stairs is cramped with two grown men crowded into it, but Malfoy’s touch grounds him, reminds him who and where he truly is. He’s hungry because it’s been hours since dinner. He needs to pee because he didn’t make it to the toilet last night before he cast that stupid spell like the giant idiot he is. It’s his fault they’re here, and it’s up to him to get them out. He’s not going to die here, and more importantly, he’s not going to let Malfoy die here either. It's simply not an option.

He’s Harry Potter. He’s in love with Draco Malfoy. And that door is not locked.

Harry holds tight to Malfoy’s hand and twists the doorknob.

The door opens, and they both tumble through.

* * *

Harry wakes up.

He’s sprawled on the hard, cold floor. The room around him is softly blurred without his glasses, but he can tell from the colour of the light that it’s just before dawn. Hours. He’s been down for only hours. His head is throbbing, his mouth is dry, and when he tries to push himself up, his arms tremble and give out. His teeth clack together as he hits the floor chin-first, catching the tip of his tongue between them, and his mouth fills with the taste of blood.

“Malfoy,” he croaks, dragging himself closer to the cot. He can see Malfoy’s pale hand curled limply around the side of the mattress.

And then the air around him seems to wobble as the house gathers its power—power it’s stolen from him and from Malfoy—and all that Dark magic slams down on him, rolling over him like an avalanche. 

Harry barely has time to brace himself, but it’s like trying to fight gravity, or the ocean. It’s so much bigger than he is, and it’s angry that he’s trying to get away.

It _hurts_. It hurts so much, and the pain is so overwhelming, so overpowering, that Harry very nearly gives up. He lets his outstretched arm fall, and something crinkles under his palm.

It’s a condom packet.

Harry knows it’s just been one night, but it feels like forever ago that they were here, Harry accidentally spilling condoms everywhere from his jacket pocket, Malfoy teasing him about being prepared for an orgy. Harry clings to the memory. Malfoy’s hands on him, the warmth of his body, the warm tobacco smell of his coat. The way one corner of his mouth lifts infinitesimally higher than the other when he smiles. The way his eyes sparkle when Harry’s said something that he finds genuinely funny. The smooth timbre of his voice, the way he sighs when Harry kisses that spot behind his ear. The way Harry’s desperate to kiss him on the mouth, the way Harry’s heart kicks against his ribs when he catches sight of Malfoy in a crowd. The way Harry’s never loved anyone like this before, and knows he’ll never love anyone else with this desperate, burning intensity so long as he lives.

If he doesn’t do this, Malfoy will die. If he doesn’t do this, they’ll _both_ die. 

His strength rises up in a wave of brutal determination, and Harry clings to it like a raft in a storm. He claws his way blindly forward, reaches up, grabs Malfoy’s hand, and holds on tight.

He braces himself against the floor, trying to push himself up, but after getting his elbow wedged under himself he can’t make it any further. His trembling arm can’t bear his own weight, and he’d maybe have a better chance if he let go of Malfoy to use both arms, but he can’t do that, he can’t. Panic swirls through him at the thought of letting go. Malfoy’s hand is limp, and Harry can’t see over the edge of the cot. Harry’s got no idea if Malfoy’s even alive up there, but he’s afraid if he lets go, Malfoy will be out of reach forever. The Dark magic dragging at Harry is pulling him down, down. Harry’s other arm gives out entirely and he collapses to the floor, but he manages to keep his hold on Malfoy’s hand.

And then Malfoy’s fingers twitch. Harry feels them curl around the leather cord knotted around his wrist.

It gives Harry the push he needs to gather what’s left of his magic and twist it up as dense as he can hold it, preparing to strike out in one last, desperate burst against the spells keeping them trapped.

His Portkey activates. At that first tug behind his navel, Harry acts. He lets loose like a cannon blast, wields his magic like a battering ram, giving it everything he’s got, and _fuck_ it _hurts_. Something shatters deep inside him, pulling tight and scraping like broken glass into the tender, vulnerable place behind his ribs. The Portkey yanks him and he feels himself spinning, squeezed tight, and then it feels like being slammed into a brick wall. There’s a brief, brutal tug of war where the Portkey pulls and the cursed mansion pulls back, and for one wild instant Harry’s sure he’s going to be torn in half. The world around him dissipates into a haze of pain and a roaring tornado of magic. The Portkey around his wrist feels like it’s on fire, and Malfoy's limp fingers are as cold as ice as the magic around him reaches a screaming crescendo.

He doesn’t remember hitting the floor of St Mungo’s.


	4. Chapter 4

Harry wakes up.

He’s staring up at a sterile white ceiling, surrounded by sterile white walls. The only bit of colour in his room is a pale yellow blanket stretched neatly over his bed. Groaning, he rolls over and gropes at the small table at his bedside, fingers closing around his glasses. He slides them onto his face, and then sits up, heart pounding.

The motion had been automatic; rolling over to grab his glasses first thing in the morning is as natural as breathing to him. But his glasses are still somewhere on the floor of the mansion, and the inconsistency makes his heart flutter. Is he still trapped? Is this a new dream? But no, now that he’s looking for it there’s a slight distortion that tells him that the pair he just slid onto his face are his spares, with their slightly-outdated lenses. Harry relaxes. He's safe now. He's really safe.

There’s no clue as to who brought them in and left them for him. His visitor’s chair is empty, but Ron and Hermione and Malfoy are the only three who’ve got unfettered access through his Floo, so it has to have been to be one of them.

Harry swings his legs out of bed, and pausing for a moment to gather himself before standing is the only deference he gives to the way his head’s spinning.

When he stands up, he nearly goes right back down. Only a quick grab for the bed saves him from collapsing onto the floor, and he spends a long minute hunched over and using the bed frame to steady himself as he works up the strength to give standing upright another go.

He has to know who brought the glasses. He hopes it was Malfoy, because that would mean that Malfoy’s okay. Everything that happened inside his head when the mansion had its hold on him and tried to convince him he was curse-damaged feels like a vivid premonition. He barely got out of the mansion alive. He has no idea how long he was asleep. He doesn’t know if Malfoy made it out with him.

He remembers the twitch of Malfoy’s fingers. He’s at least eighty percent sure that Malfoy was the one who activated the Portkey, not him. But Harry didn’t have a good grip on him, and Malfoy only had a couple of fingers hooked around the Portkey, and Harry genuinely doesn’t remember much besides it hurting a whole hell of a lot. He _thinks_ that Malfoy got out with him, but it was a close thing as the Portkey’s magic warred with the mansion’s, and he doesn’t know for sure that Malfoy made it through with him.

He _needs_ to know for sure.

Taking another couple of minutes for his dizziness to abate a little more, Harry squares his shoulders and marches out of the room.

A couple of mediwitches are talking quietly at the nearby station, and one of them gasps when she sees Harry.

“Mr Potter!” she cries, sounding downright scandalised as she moves to block him.

“Where is he? Where is Malfoy?” Harry demands, shoving his way past her. “He was brought in with me, where is he?”

“Mr Potter!” the other mediwitch says sharply while the first wrings her hands and flutters nervously after him. “You are in _no condition_ to be out of bed!”

It’s futile to try to wrestle his way past her while also clutching at the back of his hospital gown to keep it from flapping open and flashing his arse to all and sundry, but Harry gives it a go anyhow. He’s no match; he’s still weak from his ordeal at the mansion, and the mediwitch is a hell of a lot stronger than she looks. Even with free use of both his arms—and a willingness to let his arse hang out—Harry knows that he’s in no shape to force his way past her. He stops fighting.

She keeps up an iron grip on his elbow as she marches him back to his room, and Harry feels weak and dizzy enough that he ends up leaning into it for support. Once back at his bedside, she stands there blocking his way to the door as diligently as a Keeper at the hoops while he gets sullenly back under the sheets.

“Are you going to stay there until your Healer comes in, or shall I take further measures?” she asks tartly after he draws the blankets up over himself.

“I’ll stay,” Harry says, trying to hit the right balance of shame-faced and sulky as he lies through his teeth.

Her gaze is hard as steel as she stares him down, but eventually she nods once, sharply, and leaves the room.

Harry waits what he hopes is long enough to convince her of his compliance. He entertains a brief fantasy of breaking into the medi-station out in the hall and tearing through their records until he can figure out which room they’ve stashed Malfoy in, but now that he’s quiet and still, he realises that he doesn’t need to.

The soulbond Malfoy cast in the dream state is still there.

Harry had wondered whether it would be, whether it’d end up being just another part of a world that existed only inside his head or whether the magic was enough that it would end up carrying through back to reality. Looks like it was the latter. And now that he’s focusing on it, he knows he can follow it back to Malfoy. It feels a bit like an activating Portkey, except instead of a hook yanking behind his navel, it feels like a cord’s been laced through his ribs. It’s an insistent sort of tugging, just behind his breastbone. Uncomfortable, but not really unpleasant.

After a few torturously long minutes have slipped by, Harry ventures out of bed. A brief search of his room doesn’t turn up his wand or his jacket, and Harry realises that they must be back at the mansion. His wand is either on the floor or still under the pillow of the cot. And he can picture where he let his jacket fall, crumpled on the floor. 

He also doesn’t find any clothing other than a few spare hospital gowns, even though someone’s clearly been by to drop off his glasses. Fuck, they must have made a note in his chart about his tendency to skip out before he’s been officially discharged, even though it was only _one time_ and it was a vital emergency that he get back to work.

Well. Getting to Malfoy is important enough that it's worth the risk of flashing his arse in this stupid bloody hospital gown. Now that Harry’s focusing on the bond, he knows Malfoy is both alive and nearby. He’ll figure out real clothes later.

Cautiously, Harry edges the door open and peeks out. There’s only one mediwitch at the station now, the nervous one who didn’t seem to know what to do to stop him. If it comes to it, he figures he can push his way past her, but he’d rather not. The commotion might draw the attention of the other one, and Harry’s already learned that he doesn’t stand a chance against her. Idly, he wonders whether she plays Quidditch.

Just then, an owl swoops in the open window behind the desk, and when the mediwitch turns to take the letter it’s brought her, Harry makes his move.

Scuttling his way quietly down the hall and around a corner actually leaves him winded, and Harry has to brace his hand on the wall and breathe slowly for a minute while his head stops spinning. The tugging behind his ribs is even more insistent now, and Harry makes his way down two doors, three, four—

And there he is.

Harry nearly sags with relief, having to grope with one hand for the door frame to hold himself up. Through the open door he can see that Malfoy’s sat up in bed, a layer of parchments and open books spread over the hospital blankets. He’s making notes with one hand and leafing through a heavy tome with the other, a pair of black-framed reading glasses slipping down the bridge of his nose. He’s wearing the soft grey and white plaid pyjamas that he was when he cast Legilimency in the dream world.

Malfoy’s attention jerks away from his work as soon as Harry appears, and he makes a quick, desperate noise, taking off his glasses and tossing them aside. Harry’s across the room in a flash, clambering up on the bed, sending books and papers sliding to the floor, but Harry can’t bring himself to care because Malfoy’s arms are around him, holding on tight.

Malfoy’s hand slides up and down his back, up and down, and Harry lets himself sag into Malfoy’s embrace. “Shh,” Malfoy murmurs. “It’s all right, it’s all right.”

Harry laughs giddily, a little wildly. He’s just so fucking happy that Malfoy is here and he’s here with him and they’re both all right. “I don’t know why I can’t stop shaking.”

“That’ll be the magical depletion, most likely. Weakness, dizziness, shortness of breath. You might get some headaches, with or without visual auras, or nausea.” Malfoy hesitates, then admits, “I’ve read up on it. You ought to have passed the worst of it while you were still out, but your recovery will likely take a while yet, and you’ll be under fairly severe restrictions on using your magic. It won’t be easy.”

“Well you know me,” Harry mutters into Malfoy’s neck, nuzzling in closer as Malfoy pets his hair. “I don’t do anything easy.”

Malfoy’s laugh is a low vibration, and the feel of it sings through Harry’s whole body, lighting him up warm from the inside out. “Oh, I certainly know it. I suppose someone’ll have to keep an eye on you until you’re fully recovered.”

As if to prove that he’s up to the task, Malfoy picks up an unfamiliar wand and Summons a spare blanket from where it’s folded over the arm of the visitor’s chair and shakes it out, then tosses it around Harry to cover his arse, which Harry abruptly realises is prominently on display to anyone who happens to wander past the open door, and is actually a bit chilly.

Harry sits up and shrugs the blanket up over his shoulders, tucking it around himself. “How about you? Are you all right?”

Malfoy hums noncommittally as he adjusts a fold of Harry’s blanket. “It was a bit touch and go with me at first, but I’m all right. I’d likely have been discharged already, but they wanted to keep me here for you.” He hesitates, and guilt bleeds into the edges of his expression. “I told them about the bond.”

“The soulbond?”

“I’m so sorry for that. There are other ways I could have tied us together, other lesser bonding spells. The one that I used was something I’d been studying at work, something old and very Dark. Unfortunately, as I don’t make a habit of delving into bonding magic terribly often, it was the only one I had memorised.”

“Malfoy, you did what you had to,” Harry tells him firmly. “You got us out. And besides, we can undo it, right?”

“I don’t know,” Malfoy admits, now looking thoroughly miserable. “Harry, I’m so sorry. I don’t know whether it can be undone. Sometimes soulbonds can be, though it’s an arduous process. It needs to be unpicked slowly, one thread of magic at a time, but sometimes it’s possible to undo it, with enough time and patience and a whole arseload of research. But I cast it from inside your head. To my knowledge that’s never been done before. I have no idea what effect it would have on the bond. Frankly I count us lucky that it worked at all.”

“But the blood? There’s no blood inside my mind, wouldn’t that mean that it didn’t…” Harry gestures vaguely.

“The blood was only ever a symbol,” Malfoy says, and he sounds utterly miserable. “It doesn’t matter that it’s not really there, it only matters that in that moment, we both believed it was.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“I’m sorry. I can turn over everything I’ve got on it to Granger, if you’d like,” Malfoy offers. “Perhaps she could find a way to undo…”

“Fuck no,” Harry says quickly. Though Hermione is willing to be civil towards Malfoy these days, they’ll never be anything near friends. If Harry told her about the soulbond, she’d hit the roof, and it’s hard enough being in love with someone his best friend doesn’t like. He doesn’t know if he could be in love with someone his best friend actively hates. And more… Harry isn’t sure if undoing the bond is worth the bother. He’s in love and is sure that his feelings for Malfoy won’t change any time soon. And if at some point they do… “We’ll figure it out.”

Malfoy nods once, and sighs. “Well, at least we won’t have to suffer the adverse effects of it.” At Harry’s questioning look, he sighs again. “Until the bond is fully settled it has to be, ah, _consummated_. Regularly. The magical sleep you were in acted as sort of a Stasis Spell on that particular aspect of the bond, but now that you're awake again...” His mouth tightens into a grim line. “There’s a reason it’s considered Dark magic.”

“That won’t be a problem for us, at least,” Harry says. “I can’t imagine it wanting us to fuck more often than we already are.”

“Because you’re insatiable,” Malfoy says dryly, but his mouth twitches up at the corner.

Harry just shrugs, because when it comes to Malfoy he really is.

“I also… may have been a bit vague in my discussions with the Healer about which soulbond I used. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t, you know…”

“Rat you out?” Harry puts in with a small smile.

“Exactly.”

Harry lets his smile grow as he settles back on Malfoy’s lap. The papers under one knee crinkle.

“So, what’s all this?” Harry asks, gesturing at the scattered mess around them.

“Research,” Malfoy says. “Now that we know it’s a Family Home, I was trying to sort out whose family it belonged to.”

“And did you?”

“I did,” Malfoy says, and pauses, lips parted, as if he’s weighing the words on the tip of his tongue. “Just now, actually. It’s… well, there’s really no easy way to say this. Harry, it’s yours.”

Harry blinks, and pulls away from Malfoy to be able to look him in the eye. “Mine?”

“Well, a branch of your family. A twig, really. They split off from the main Potter tree in the mid 1500s, around the time that the witch trials were really beginning to pick up steam. In the 1600s there were several generations of daughters in a row, which rather convoluted things name-wise as the firstborn heir of each generation took her husband’s name. Then a series of male heirs kept them Finches until”—Malfoy reaches around Harry to fish a scrap of parchment out from under his right shin—“1768, at which point their only heir—another daughter—married and became a Dunne, and so the family remained until their line came to an end. The final seven generations were all only children, the last of whom never married nor had children of his own, and when he passed in 1907, none of the family’s distant cousins were interested in taking on the property and so it was abandoned.”

“So, they weren’t _really_ Potters, then,” Harry says slowly. He still feels weak, tired, and that was a lot to follow. He lets himself slump against Malfoy and tucks his face back into that warm place where Malfoy’s neck and shoulder meet. “I mean, 500 years and all those name changes…”

“Blood knows, Harry,” Malfoy says chidingly. “Blood always knows. And so does magic.” His arm comes back around Harry, and a moment later Harry hears a paper flutter to the floor. “That’d be why you reacted as you did. The house’s magic resonated with yours, like how an opera singer can shatter a crystal wine glass with the right note.”

“And I was the wine glass,” Harry sighs.

“It’s likely the only reason we’re both still alive,” Malfoy says.

Harry frowns. “How do you figure that?”

“It had to have recognised you,” Malfoy says. His hand rubs slowly up and down Harry’s spine. “It likely wanted to keep you alive if it could. Me, it was draining steadily, but _you_ , if it could keep you complacent, it could have fed off for days.”

Harry shudders. “If it’d started off the dreams with the two of us in bed, it might’ve.” He thinks of Malfoy’s hand curled limply over the edge of the cot, how frail his grip had felt in Harry’s own. “That’s why I had enough magic left to get us out, isn’t it? Because it was trying to make me last?”

“Most likely,” Malfoy says, and Harry’s sure it’s not just his imagination that Malfoy’s grip around him tightens.

A giddy laugh escapes him. “I can’t believe how fucking lucky I am. A lost branch of my own family’s house. My god. The odds of it have got to be astronomical.” 

“We were both lucky,” Malfoy says. “That the house wanted to keep you alive. That I knew a bonding spell. Hell, that I’ve been helping you with your Legilimency to be able to find my way into your mind, and that you’re still shit enough at it that I was able to get in.”

Harry frowns a little at that. “I’d been meaning to ask,” he says. “I didn’t think my shields had collapsed, since I wasn’t wiped out by Dark magic. But if they held, then how were you able to get in? And how did it know my dreams? How did it know when I noticed something wasn’t right? I didn’t always say it out loud but the world adjusted anyhow.”

“You’ve come a long way with your Occlumency,” Malfoy says, “but I think you’re always going to be a bit shit at it, unfortunately. No offense.”

“None taken,” Harry says, because he knows that Malfoy’s right.

“So when the house pulled you under and locked you up in your own mind, your shields came under a tremendous amount of magical pressure. Really, you ought to feel proud of yourself that they didn’t shatter entirely. But they did crack. It’s how I kept breaking into your dreams. And it’s how the house was able to read you enough to come up with a dream world for you, but also why it kept getting so much wrong. It couldn’t see everything at once, only shifting glimpses.”

Harry hums a little. “That makes sense,” he says. “Guess I’m lucky that knowing what it was doing to us and trying to stop it wasn’t one of the things that leaked out.”

“It was a risk, but a calculated one,” Malfoy says. “I was banking on you being able to keep it busy enough, to force it to keep adjusting rapidly enough that it wouldn’t have a chance to go digging for more. Just as it was a risk for me to let my own shields slide enough once we were together to let the house think that it had me. By letting it think it’d lured me into my deepest dream, I’d hoped that it’d turn its attention to you so that I could finish the spell without its notice.”

Harry frowns a little at that, because he hadn’t seen Malfoy’s dreams at all, just his own. “What dream?”

Malfoy shifts uncomfortably, seeming to draw into himself. “You’re not really going to make me say it out loud, are you?

“Say _what_ out loud?” Harry’s not following along at all what Malfoy’s talking about, and it’s beginning to annoy him. “I never saw your dream, we were in mine the whole time.”

Malfoy frowns. “What are you talking about, yours? The whole thing was my dream. From the first time it tried to settle us in bed after a round of lazy morning sex, to that dinner with your friends, to living together—”

Harry sat up all the way. “Wait. All that was yours? I… wait, it can’t be yours. That was all _mine_.”

Now Malfoy looks surprised, and pushes himself up higher in the bed. “You thought it was yours? But…”

“I mean… it kept changing for me, when I noticed things that weren’t quite right…” Harry says faintly. “But you thought…?”

They stare at each other.

“Is there… something you’d like to tell me?” Malfoy prompts after a moment.

“Is there something _you’d_ like to tell _me_?” Harry counters. Something hopeful is beginning to prickle to life in the pit of his stomach.

They stare at each other some more.

“Merlin,” Malfoy says after a few long moments. He sounds half-annoyed, but there’s an eagerness to his expression that keeps him from sounding too irritated. “This is ridiculous. We’ve been inside of each other’s deepest dreams, and apparently they’re similar enough that we couldn’t tell whose was whose.” He takes a deep breath. “I’m in love with you. I have been for a while. It wasn’t supposed to happen, but here I am.”

“I…” Harry says. All he can do is keep staring. He can feel his heart pounding. He feels like he can’t quite catch his breath. Malfoy loves him. _Malfoy loves him_.

“This would be very awkward if I didn’t already know you’re in love with me, too,” Malfoy says, giving Harry a poke in the ribs.

“Shit, sorry,” Harry says. “I love you too. Hey, does this mean I can kiss you now?”

If Harry were thinking a little clearer, he might have wanted to save their first kiss for something more romantic. Really set the scene and do it right. But this, here, with Harry straddling Malfoy’s lap in a hospital bed after they’ve both come a hairsbreadth from dying? This is them through and through. 

And anyhow, Harry’s been dreaming of this moment for so long that no matter how or where or when it finally happened, it couldn’t possibly be anything but perfect.

He’s right, as it turns out. It is.

Harry leans in, but Malfoy’s the one to close that last inch between them, brushing his lips chastely over Harry’s. He backs off, just barely, and Harry chases after him, kissing him more firmly this time, parting his lips and feeling Malfoy’s mouth go pliant under his, warm and soft, and Harry’s brain blanks out in a feverish blur of the pure pleasure of finally— _finally_ —getting everything he’s ever wanted.

It feels like that moment where his fingers close around the Snitch, except it goes on and on and _on_. Kissing Malfoy is every bit as brilliant as Harry’s always imagined it would be. A shiver of excitement unfurls in the pit of his stomach at the thought of getting to do this all the time. Malfoy’s hand comes up to tangle in Harry’s hair and he can’t help the soft moan that rises in his throat. Malfoy kisses him deeper, swallowing the sound as his fingers tighten in Harry’s hair and he tugs gently. Time goes sort of wobbly after that, and Harry couldn’t say how long they end up snogging like a couple of teenagers, except when he was a teenager it wasn’t anywhere near this good. _This_ is brilliant.

It’s not until he feels himself starting to get hard that it hits him that the door to Malfoy’s hospital room is open and they’re plainly visible to anyone who might wander by. This really isn’t a situation where he can take care of an erection with any sort of satisfaction, and the next best thing is (unfortunately) to not let one happen in the first place.

Harry pulls back. “I can’t wait to get out of here and continue this properly with you.” His home, Malfoy’s flat, it doesn’t matter. Harry wants Malfoy in a bed that doesn’t crank up to a sitting position, and a locked door to keep out the rest of the world. “But for now I think we need to stop.”

With great and plainly visible reluctance, Malfoy sits back, putting as much distance between them as he can with Harry still perched on his lap.

“We’d best get you back to your room, then. I’m sure your Healer is looking for you by now. And Weasley’s still your emergency contact, they’ll have alerted him you’ve woken up. He’ll be eager to finally see you awake,” Malfoy says.

“They can wait a little longer,” Harry murmurs and leans in to peck another kiss against Malfoy’s mouth just because he can. “How long have I been out, anyhow?”

“Nearly a week.”

That brings him up short. “What? A _week_?”

“Harry, you drained yourself dry getting us out of that house,” Malfoy tells him, fondly exasperated. “They had to put you into a magical coma for your core to replenish. For the first few days, they weren’t sure you would ever wake up.”

“Well you sound like you were terribly worried about me,” Harry says, rolling his eyes.

“I wasn’t,” Malfoy says steadily, and pauses until he has Harry’s full attention. “I had faith.”

And Harry just has to kiss him all over again for that.

It’s wonderful, and Harry’s still wrapping his brain around the idea that he gets to have this _all the time_. He gets to have this _whenever he wants_. For the rest of his life, even! Assuming Malfoy wants to put up with Harry for that long, but if Harry’s tendency to leave his dirty pants lying forgotten on the bathmat after he showers hasn’t driven Malfoy off by now, Harry’s pretty confident that nothing will. 

For a moment Harry has the wild idea of proposing to Malfoy right here and now, but he dismisses the idea just as quickly as it’d popped into his head. At the very least he ought to think some on how he’s going to do it, otherwise he’ll probably say something stupid and terrible. Knowing Malfoy’s in love with him back probably hasn’t turned Harry into less of an idiot around him, and Malfoy will never ever let him hear the end of it if he screws up, or worse, lets one of his utterly terrible innuendos slip out. And anyhow, they really ought to give all their friends and family a chance to get used to the idea of them as boyfriends before they start planning a wedding. Harry has a vivid vision of introducing Malfoy to the Weasleys as his fiancé and actually shudders at the thought. Yeah, they’re definitely going to wait on that. Maybe a long while. Harry knows that Malfoy’s it for him. There’s no reason to rush.

“Chilly?” Malfoy asks, tugging Harry’s blanket a little higher up his shoulder.

“No, I’m fine,” Harry says. “Better than fine. Everything’s perfect.”

And then a terrible, terrible thought strikes him.

“Everything’s perfect,” Harry repeats faintly, sudden dread making his chest go tight.

“Potter?” Malfoy asks, alarmed. He reaches for his wand.

“Everything’s perfect,” Harry says, urgently this time. “This is… I wouldn’t change a thing about this. It’s perfect. It’s everything I’ve dreamed about. Malfoy”—he grips Malfoy’s hands in his, holds on tight—“what if I’m still dreaming? What if I never woke up, _what if I’m still there_?”

Malfoy blinks, and a flicker of unease crosses his expression. “Potter…”

“If I wanted to trick someone into staying in a dream, I’d start off making it really obvious,” Harry goes on. “I’d let them figure out what was happening, let them fight and break through it, and put them into a deeper dream where they’ve won and can go back to their normal life. So how can I know? What if this isn’t real? St Mungo’s? You? God, what if I’m still in there?”

“ _Harry_ ,” Malfoy says sharply. His grip tightens on Harry’s hands, and he _feels_ real, his hands are warm and solid against Harry’s bare skin. But he’d felt real inside Harry’s mind too, everything had felt real. He thinks of that first dream of the pub with Ron. The pint glass had felt cold and wet with condensation. It’d all felt real, so how can he _know_?

“I don’t know what’s real. How can I know what’s real?”

Malfoy nudges Harry off his lap and stands up, then takes Harry’s hand in his own. “I know how. Come with me.”

He tugs, and Harry lets himself be drawn to his feet. Malfoy reaches for the valise sitting on the visitor’s chair and pulls out clothing, slinging a pair of trousers over his own shoulder, then tossing several items to Harry.

“Put that on,” he says, closing his bag again. He strips off the pyjamas he’s wearing and Harry’s momentarily distracted by the sudden appearance of Malfoy’s arse, showcased in a tiny, tight pair of black pants. “ _Potter_.”

“Right,” Harry says, turning away. He drops the hospital gown, and pulls on the jumper Malfoy gave him, then the jeans. They’re a little tight in the waist and much more form-fitting around the arse than Harry’s used to—Malfoy’s a size or two slimmer—but he gets the fly done up, and quickly turns up the bottoms so he’s not stepping on the hems, because apparently a lot of Malfoy’s height is in his legs.

Malfoy’s dressed by now, in another pair of jeans and a blue jumper, with his black wool coat over that. This one falls to his knees, and smells strongly of cedar, like it’s been packed away. Malfoy hands another, thicker jumper to Harry, who puts it on and feels the Warming Charm woven through it crackle to life in a fine haze of static.

“Shoes?” he asks.

Malfoy digs through the valise and comes up with a pair of slippers, which he Transfigures into a pair of trainers. He tosses them at Harry, who crams his feet into them and knots the laces. Malfoy, meanwhile, has sidled over to the door and peers out into the hallway.

“Shall we play it safe and Disillusion ourselves, or do you think we can get past them without it?”

“We’re leaving? We haven’t been discharged.”

Malfoy just turns around and raises his eyebrows, waiting.

Harry huffs out a sigh. It was _one time_. “Yeah, all right,” he mutters. “Fuck it, let’s go.”

If he’s going to have a reputation about this, he figures he might as well earn it.

Sneaking out of St Mungo’s feels eerily reminiscent of sneaking around Hogwarts past curfew, for all that Harry’s now a full-grown adult. At one point he and Malfoy are forced to duck into an alcove crammed with medical supplies to dodge a couple of mediwitches on their rounds. They’re pressed tightly together, Malfoy’s soft breath steady in Harry’s ear. Harry noses at him until he tips his head just-so and Harry kisses him, which Malfoy immediately ruins by grinning into it.

They make it out of the hospital undetected, and five minutes later they’re standing in front of the mansion. It looms over them, inky dark against the light-polluted grey of the sky, and Harry’s shiver isn’t from the chilly night air. He’s far enough away that its magic shouldn’t be affecting him out here where he's standing on the pavement outside the gate, but Malfoy’s comparison to a wine glass floats through his mind. Blood knows. Magic knows. And Harry can’t shake the idea that the mansion knows he’s back and is waiting like a spider in its web for him to come closer.

Harry’s doubts about whether he’s truly broken free of the mansion are instantly dissipated. Focusing carefully, he can feel it resonate deep inside him. It’s an echo of what he’d felt when he’d been exposed to the Dark magic inside the mansion, but it’s real. The only time he’d felt anything like this in the dream world had been when Malfoy had cast the soulbond. A real reaction to real magic.

“It had us,” Malfoy says quietly, solemnly. Harry glances over at him, but Malfoy doesn't look back. He's staring up at the mansion. “It was inside our heads, and it’s siphoned off some of our magic. It knows us—intimately. It’s still got a hold on us.” He pauses, lips parted, and his tongue darts out to wet them before he continues, “It means to lure us back, I think. Sooner or later, we’d come back, if for no other reason than to face our fears, to try to prove to ourselves that it’s over, really over. Then it’d have another chance to get us again. This time, permanently.”

“Then what the fuck are we doing back here?”

“Not giving it that chance.” Malfoy’s lighter is suddenly in his hand, and he twirls it idly in his fingers, flicks it open and shut, open and shut. “What was it you said, that there are very few problems that can’t be solved by burning it to the fucking ground?”

He holds out the lighter to Harry.

Harry takes it from him, the metal of it smooth against his fingers, and warm from Malfoy's body. He flicks it open, and the little flame clicks to life.

“Are you sure?” he asks. “You said this was a once-in-a-lifetime chance to study some incredibly rare magic.”

“That’s when I thought it was curses.”

“And now you know it’s not. But that doesn’t really change anything, right?” Harry presses on. “Because you said that every family who could create one of these is really careful to never let it happen. Couldn’t you learn from this?”

“I’m certain that I could,” Malfoy says. “I’m certain that I could write countless papers and build an entire career on this house alone. I could spend years studying it and still learn new things every day. But.” He looks over at Harry. “Would you ever be able to sleep at night, knowing that it’s out here, waiting for you to come back?”

“Probably not,” Harry admits.

“Neither would I,” Malfoy says. “So, we burn it.”

Harry nods, once, and clicks the lighter again. “To the fucking ground,” he agrees.

It doesn’t take long to lay in the spellwork: a broad woven net of Accelerant Charms, usually used to start campfires, and several strong shields to keep the Muggles away until the job is done. Malfoy weaves one final spell, another Accelerant Charm that he loops into the rest and draws back out to the pavement, so that they won’t even have to set foot on the property, never mind inside the mansion itself. Harry spares a moment’s regret for what they left inside. Their wands, his jacket, his glasses, Malfoy’s coat. But things can be replaced, and he doesn’t dare risk trying to go back inside for them. The only thing that truly matters is standing right here beside him.

“Well, Auror Scarhead,” Malfoy says, tucking his hands into the pockets of his black wool coat and taking half a step back. “Will you do the honours?”

Harry flicks Malfoy’s lighter, watches the little flame leap to life. He grins. “Well, Unspeakable Hot Arse. It’d be my pleasure.”

Malfoy’s smile is brighter than the mansion as flames consume it, and makes Harry feel twice as warm as the heat that’s radiating all the way out to the pavement. Hand in hand, they stand together and watch it burn.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is part of HD Erised 2020; thank you so much for reading! You can show your appreciation for the author in a comment below. ♥


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